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fym\)'& CngUsl) Classics 

POPE'S 

THE ILIAD OF HOMER 

BOOKS I, VI, XXII, and XXIV 

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY 

PAUL SHOREY, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

1899 



TWO COF>ies RECEIVED, 

Library of Congregsy 
Office of the 

DEO 8-18^0 

Register of Copyright 



Copyright, 1899 
By D. C. Heath & Co. 



53819 



SECOND COPY, 

& Jus.\o -^ . 



Plimpton Press 

H. M. PLIMPTON & CO., PRINTERS & BINDERS, 
NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Introduction : 

I. Homer and the Iliad , . . . . . y 
II. Pope and Pope's Iliad xx 

The Iliad: 

Book I . . . , ■ . . ... . i 

Book VI 27 

Book XXII . . . . . . .50 

Book XXIV . 72 

Notes . .107 



111 



INTRODUCTION. 



HOMER AND THE ILIAD. 

Greek literature begins with the Iliad, a masterpiece which 
remained for a thousand years the Bible and the Milton of 
the nation. Such a poem presupposes a long process of 
growth. No one bard invented the chief personages and 
incidents of the tale of Troy, or shaped the Homeric hexame- 
ter into " the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of 
man. 1 ' But for the history of this development we are reduced 
to mere conjecture. There may have been a long line of 
ballad poets preceding Homer, as- well as of epic poets con- 
temporary with or succeeding him. The Iliad, as we have it, 
is certainly not the work of one literary artist in the sense in 
which this may be said of Virgil's JEneid or of Milton's Para- 
dise Lost. Yet its unity of design and style convince compe- 
tent judges of poetry that it was shaped in the main by one 
transcendent genius, whether we conceive him preferably as 
the inventor of a framework filled out by others or as the poet 
who harmonized and supplemented a loose collection of pre- 
existing lays. 

Only a little less vague is our knowledge of the precise 
relation of this unknown Homer to the beginnings and pre- 
historic origins of Greek civilization. The Iliad describes an 
expedition of the chieftains of Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae, 
and other towns of European Greece, against a city in 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

northwestern Asia Minor. On the traditional site of Troy 
Schliemann has discovered the remains of a prehistoric city 
answering fairly well to Homer's descriptions. 1 At Mycenae, 
the traditional seat of Agamemnon's power, and at the neigh- 
boring Tiryns, the spade of the archaeologist has uncovered 
tombs, citadels, and rock-built palaces that fit our conceptions 
of the palaces and the graves of the great Homeric monarchs. 
Greek history tells us of the overthrow of an earlier civiliza- 
tion in the Peloponnesus by rude Dorian tribes from the north 
who expelled the older dynasties and founded the historic 
states of Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae. An extensive emigra- 
tion to Asia Minor was brought about by this shifting of popu- 
lations, and the Greek cities of Asia Minor thus founded or 
renewed were the seat of the first efflorescence of Greek com- 
merce, letters, and philosophy. 2 

These few facts have been worked up by scholars into 
every conceivable permutation and combination. One of the 
most plausible of these theories is that, while the outline of 
the Iliad was composed in continental Greece in honor of the 
Thessalian hero Achilles, the poem, as we have it, is a product 
of the Greek civilization of Asia Minor. The poet or poets 
who sang to the princes and rich burghers of the Asiatic 
Greek cities created in the story of the siege of Troy an 
ideal picture of the long series of obscure conflicts by which 
their ancestors established themselves upon the coast of 
Asia. 

With regard to these and similar problems we may say 
to the young student of Homer as literature what Matthew 
Arnold says to the translator of Homer : " These are ques- 
tions which have been discussed with learning, with inge- 
nuity, nay, with genius ; but they have two inconveniences, — 

1 Cf. Schuchhardt's Schliemann (Eng. translation). Holm, History 
of Greece (translation), Vol. I, p. 76. 

2 Holm, Vol. I, chap, xii, p. 135. 



INTRODUCTION. vii 

one general for all who approach them, one particular for the 
translator. The general inconvenience is that there really 
exist no data for determining them. The particular incon- 
venience is that their solution by the translator, even were it 
possible, could be of no benefit to his translation." 

Regarded merely as a story the Iliad is a short episode in 
the siege of Troy, one of the four great tales of Grecian 
legend. Homer, as Horace observes in the Ars Poetica, does 
not begin the Trojan war with an account of the swan's egg, 
from which Helen was born, but plunges boldly into the 
midst of things and sweeps his hearer on with only occasional 
allusions to the rest of the story as we find it systematically 
set forth in the hand-books of mythology. 

That story, as a whole, was known to the Greeks from 
other epic poems of which only a few lines of fragments re- 
main. These, the so-called Cyclic poems or epics of the cycle, 
were sometimes attributed to Homer by the uncritical, but 
were later than the Iliad. They seem to have been arranged 
in a continuous series leading up to and supplementing the 
Iliad and Odyssey. A sufficient account of the little that is 
known about them will be found in Jebb's Introduction to 
Homer, p. 153, and in Lang's Hojner and the Epic, p. 322 
sqq. From these lost epics were derived many of the epi- 
sodes with which the Greek dramatists and later poets embel- 
lished the legend. 

The story as thus known is charmingly told, with some 
sentimental modern touches, by Andrew Lang in his pretty 
poem, Helen of Troy. In Lang's version the Iliad proper is 
represented only by stanzas xi-xxi of Book V. All that pre- 
cedes is the " things before Homer'' and what follows the 
"things after Homer' 1 — the latter known to us now mainly 
from the account of the capture of Troy in the second book 
of Virgil's ALiieid) and from the Post-Homerica of Quintus of 
Smyrna, an epic poet of the fourth century A.D. 



viii INTRODUCTION. 

The tale of Troy is in outline this : Zeus and Poseidon 
loved Thetis, daughter of the old man of the sea, but relin- 
quished her to King Peleus of Thessaly because of a prophecy 
that she was to bear a son mightier than his sire. Zeus, de- 
sirous to relieve the earth of the burden of over-population, 
made the marriage of Peleus and Thetis the occasion of a 
great war. "When all the full-faced presence of the gods 
ranged in the halls of Peleus," 1 Discord, alone not invited, 
cast upon the board a golden apple whose gleaming rind 
was engraven " For the most fair." The prize was claimed 
by Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, and the arbitrament was 
referred to Paris, a son of King Priam of Troy, who had 
been exposed as a babe upon Mount Ida and brought up by 
shepherds in ignorance of his rank because of the ill-boding 
dream of his mother Hecuba and the dire omens that 
attended his birth. The " Judgment of Paris " is a favorite 
theme of later poetry and painting, and is known to English 
readers from the poems of Parnell and Beattie, and Tenny- 
son's beautiful CEnone. Homer alludes to it but once and 
briefly in the words : " But they (Hera and Athena) con- 
tinued as when at the beginning sacred Ilios became hate- 
ful to them, and Priam and his people, by reason of the 
sin of Alexandros (Paris) in that he contemned those god- 
desses when they came to his steading, and preferred her 
who brought him deadly lustful ness." By ' her who brought 
him deadly lustfulness 7 is meant Aphrodite, who promised 
him "the fairest and most loving wife in Greece. 1 ' 

By the help of Aphrodite Paris obtained recognition of his 
birth, built a fleet of ships and sailed across seas to the court 
of Menelaus, king of Sparta, where he won the love of Helen 
the wife of Menelaus, and bore her back to Troy, together 
with much stolen treasure. 

Helen, nominally the daughter of Tyndareus, was, accord- 
1 Tennyson's CEnone. 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

ing to later legend, really the child of Zeus. All the princes 
of Greece sought her in marriage, and all, in the post-Homeric 
story, swore to defend the rights of the man whom her father 
should select. Menelaus accordingly summoned his brother 
Agamemnon, the great king of Mycenae rich in gold, and 
other prominent chieftains, to help him to recover Helen and 
revenge the wrong done to Greece. 

Ten years were spent in collecting a mighty host with the 
aid of Hera and Athena. Embassies were sent to demand 
redress in vain. At last a fleet of 1186 ships and 100.000 
men was assembled at Aulis in Eubcea under the command 
of Agamemnon. 

The second book of the Iliad contains a catalogue of this 
force, a sort of Domesday Book of early Greece. The most 
prominent leaders under Agamemnon and Menelaus were 
wise old Nestor of Pylos, with 90 ships, Idomeneus of Crete 
and Diomede of Argos, with 80 each, Achilles, son of Peleus, 
and his bosom friend Patroclus, from Phthia and Hellas, with 
50 ships, Ajax Telamon from Salamis with 12, and Odysseus 
of Ithaca with 12. 

The Trojans, of whom a list is also given, were outnum- 
bered by the Greeks in the proportion of ten to one. Their 
bravest leaders were Hector, son of Priam, his cousin ^Eneas, 
best known as the hero of the ^Eneid, and the leaders of the 
Lycian allies, Glaucus and Sarpedon. 

At this point later legend introduces two stories ignored by 
Homer. One relates how the Greeks, missing their bearings, 
landed on the coast of Mysia and after various adventures 
returned to Greece for a fresh start. The other is the pathetic 
legend of the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia 
to propitiate the wrath of Artemis who was detaining the 
fleet at Aulis by adverse winds — a favorite theme of later 
poetry known to English readers from the exquisite verses 
of Landor and the four beautiful stanzas in Tennyson's 



x INTRODUCTION. 

Drea?n of Fair Women. Another pathetic incident marked 
the arrival of the Greeks at Troy. An oracle had declared 
that the first Greek to set foot on Trojan soil must fall. 
When all others shrank back Protesilaus, though he had 
left a young bride and an unfinished home behind, offered 
himself a willing victim. The story, just glanced at in a 
line of the catalogue of ships, is the theme of Wordsworth's 
Laodameia. 

The incidents invented by later legend to fill the nine years 
of siege that precede the Iliad need not detain us. The 
Greeks are conceived as encamped in huts built about the 
sterns of their ships drawn up on the Trojan strand. They 
were unable to invest the city and were obliged to supply 
their wants by forays into the surrounding country and 
attacks on neighboring towns and islands. Glimpses of 
these expeditions are afforded by Achilles's boasts of the 
number of cities he has taken by sea and land. 

So long as Achilles kept the field the Trojans rarely ven- 
tured to descend to open combat in the plain between Troy 
and the ships. In the tenth year Achilles's quarrel with 
Agamemnon about the beautiful captives, Chrysei's and 
Briseis, gave them a respite until Hector slew Patroclus, and 
love for his dead friend triumphing over every other passion 
in Achilles's breast hurled him into the war again, there to 
slay Hector, the chief support of Troy. This episode is the 
Iliad. The action of the poem occupies about 45 days, of 
which the first book takes 21. The 22d day extends through 
the sixth book to line 380 of the seventh. Hector is slain in 
Book XXII on the 27th day. 

The following summary of the plot is slightly abbreviated 
from that given in J ebb's Homer, p. 6 : — 

-- I. In the tenth year of the war, Apollo plagues the Greeks, because 
the daughter of Chryses, his priest, has been taken by Agamemnon, 
who, being required to restore her, wrongs Achilles by depriving him 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

of his captive, the maiden Briseis. Thereupon Achilles retires from 
the war, and Zeus swears to Thetis, the hero's mother, that the Greeks 
shall rue this wrong done to her son. 

II. Agamemnon's beguiling dream. Marshalling of the army. 
Catalogue of Greek and Trojan forces. 

III. Duel between Paris and Menelaus. Helen and Priam view the 
Greek hosts from the walls of Troy. Aphrodite saves Paris. 

IV. The Trojan Pandarus breaks the truce. Agamemnon marshals 
the Greeks. The armies join battle. 

V. Exploits of Diomede, who, helped by Athena, wounds Aphrodite 
and Ares. 

VI. Interview of Diomede and the Lycian Glaucus on the field of 
battle. Hector, returning to Troy, bids farewell to Andromache before 
going out to battle again. 

VII. Duel of Hector and Ajax. Burying of the dead. The Greeks 
build a wall to protect their camp. 

VIII. Fighting, interrupted at 485 by the gods. At night the Trojans 
bivouac on the field. Famous moonlight scene. • 

IX. Agamemnon sends envoys to Achilles by night, offering amends 
and the restoration of Briseis. Achilles spurns the offer in a magnifi- 
cent speech. 

X. Episode of the night expedition of Odysseus and Diomede, who 
slay the spy Dolon and the sleeping Rhesus, chief of the Thracians. 

XI. Great deeds of Agamemnon, who is finally disabled with many 
others. Patroclus, sent by Achilles, learns that the plight of the Greeks 
is desperate. 

XII. The Trojans, led by Hector, break through the wall of the 
Greek camp. 

XIII. Zeus, having turned his eyes away, Poseidon encourages the 
Greeks. 

XIV. The sleep god and Hera lull Zeus to sleep on Ida. Poseidon 
urges on the Greeks, and Hector is wounded. 

XV. Zeus awakens. At his bidding Apollo restores Hector. The 
Trojans attack the ships, which Ajax bravely defends. 

XVI. Patroclus intercedes for the Greeks with Achilles who lends 
him his armor. In the guise of his friend, Patroclus leads the Myrmi- 
dons to battle, drives back the Trojans, and at last is slain by Hector. 

XVII. Fight over the corpse of Patroclus. 

XVIII. Achilles learns the death of Patroclus, and makes moan for 
him ; at the sound whereof, Thetis rises from the sea, and comes to her 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

son. She persuades the god of fire, Hephaestus, to make new armor 
for Achilles. The shield wrought by Hephaestus is described. 

XIX. Reconciliation of Agamemnon and Achilles. Restoration of 
Briseis. Achilles goes forth to battle. The horse Xanthus speaks with 
a human voice and foretells the doom of Achilles. 

XX. The gods come down to join in the battle. Achilles fights with 
-^Eneas, who is saved by Poseidon ; and with Hector, who is saved by 
Apollo. 

XXI. The river god Scamander fights with Achilles, who is saved 
by Hephaestus. 

~ XXII. Achilles fights with Hector, and chases him thrice round the 
walls of Troy. Zeus weighs in golden scales the lots of Achilles and 
Hector. Hector is doomed to die ; Apollo deserts him, while Athena 
lures him to his doom and aids Achilles. Achilles slays Hector. 
Lament of Andromache. 

XXIII. The spirit of Patroclus appears to Achilles and craves burial. 
The funeral rites and games. 

-=. XXIV. As Achilles daily drags the corpse of Hector round the 
barrow of Patroclus, Apollo pleads with the gods, and Zeus stirs up 
Priam to go and ransom the body of his son. The god Hermes, in 
disguise, conducts the aged king across the plain; Achilles receives 
him courteously, and accepts the ransom ; and Priam goes back to 
Troy with the corpse of Hector, to be mourned and buried. 

The Iliad is no garrulous chronicle of a ten years' war. It 
is not a history or a biography. Its subject is not Achilles, 
but the wrath of Achilles. For, as Aristotle says in his Poet- 
ics, many things happen to one man that are connected by 
no inner or rational bond, and it is therefore an aesthetic error 
to choose such a subject for a poem as The Life and Death 
of Jason. The unity of the Iliad is spiritual and dramatic. 
It is the portrayal of a mighty conflict of passions in a great 
and noble but erring soul, and the effects of that conflict on 
the destinies of two contending armies, and of many brave 
men and beautiful women. 

Dante sums it up in a line when he speaks of " great 
Achilles who at the last was brought to fight by love." And 
Ruskin in Sesame and Lilies expands the same thought in 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

his eloquent way : " The main features in the character of 
Achilles are its intense desire of justice and its tenderness of 
affection. And in that bitter song of the Iliad, this man, 
though aided continually by the wisest of the gods and burn- 
ing with the desire of justice in his heart, becomes yet, 
through ill-governed passion, the most unjust of men ; and, 
full of the deepest tenderness in his heart, becomes yet, 
through ill-governed passion, the most cruel of men. In- 
tense alike in love and friendship, he loses first his mistress, 
and then his friend ; for the sake of the one he surrenders 
to death the armies of his own land ; for the sake of the 
other he surrenders all. Will a man lay down his life for his 
friend? Yea — even for his dead friend, this Achilles, though 
goddess-born, and goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom, his 
country, and his life — casts alike the innocent and guilty, 
with himself, into one gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by 
the hand of the basest of his adversaries." 

It is possible to select from the twenty-four books of the Iliad 
a "Story of Achilles 1 ' that shall move more swiftly and directly 
to the goal of Achilles's reappearance in the field to avenge 
upon Hector the death of Patroclus. But we must not infer 
that such a skeleton plot is aesthetically better or historically 
nearer to the original design than the Iliad as we have it. 1 

A significant dramatic episode makes a better epic than a 
long-drawn chronicle. But the episode will interest us little 
unless it is so narrated as to bring before our minds the larger 
action of which it is a part. It is only by an unreal abstrac- 
tion of scholars that the story of Achilles or Achillei'd can be 
conceived apart from the song of Ilium or the Iliad. The 
twenty-second book is the climax of the Iliad. It is there 
that the pity and terror culminate when Hector makes his 
last stand without the walls which he has defended so long, 

1 Jebb's fourth chapter contains as much of the erudition of the 
Homeric question as the young student can possibly use. 



xiv INTRODUCTION. 

and around which he has thrice fled in an access of irresisti- 
ble terror before the embittered foe who is now to slay him. 
But how should this combat move us more than any other 
encounter of clamorous spear-brandishing warriors of the age 
of bronze if we did not know the sacred Ilium from which 
Priam and Hecuba look down in unavailing anguish ? What 
would Andromache be to us that we should weep for her when 
she falls fainting on the great tower of Ilium to see that gra- 
cious head trailed in the dust in his enemy's day if we had not 
in our minds that other picture of Hector's babe clinging to 
the nurse's bosom scared at the father's glittering crest while 
the mother stands by smiling through her tears? What tragic 
lesson should we read in Achilles's wrath if we were simply told 
that he cherished his grudge against the Greeks for suffering 
Agamemnon to rob him of Briseis until it was banished from 
his mind by the fiercer passion of his thirst for revenge upon 
Hector? We must witness the consequences of that wrath in 
the books where Achilles is conspicuous by his absence. We 
must observe the failure of the heroism of Diomede and Ajax, 
and of the sagacious policy of Odysseus and Nestor to supply 
his place. We must have seen him, in the ninth book, relent- 
lessly spurn the atonement proffered by Agamemnon and the 
humbled mediation of the noblest Greeks, his friends. We 
must have watched his passion exalt itself to the height of 
the pride and ruthlessness that invite the cruel nemesis which 
overtakes him in the end. Then, when fire has been hurled 
upon the Grecian ships, and Patroclus has been slain, and 
Achilles clad in the divine armor at last goes forth to seek 
" him who has laid low so dear a head," we understand the 
whirlwind of conflicting passions, shame, remorse, grief, fierce 
thirst for revenge and foreboding of his own untimely death 
that sweep him on ; we can comprehend, if not pardon, his 
cruelty, and can admit that even Hector, brave though he be, 
may well shrink before that "terror of the plain." 



INTRODUCTION. xv 

But all this means that the climax of the poem aesthetically 
justifies if it does not absolutely guaranty the main structure 
of our Iliad. We must have the second and third books to 
acquaint us with Troy town and introduce the chief dramatis 
persona. Without the sixth book Hector, Andromache. Paris, 
and Helen are mere names. The ninth book is required for 
the development of the character of Achilles and the justifica- 
tion of the nemesis that falls upon him. After this let us con- 
cede that interpolators may be responsible for repetitions and 
unnecessary scenes in Books II— VIII, and for the confusion 
and drawing out of the fighting in Books XI-XVII ; that the 
fifth and tenth books may be treated as detachable episodes, 
and the twenty-third and twenty-fourth as afterpieces. We 
can neither prove nor disprove it, and it does not matter. 

The least attractive feature of the Iliad to the modern 
reader is the interminable slashing and foining and spear- 
hurling of the battle scenes. This feeling is brutally ex- 
pressed by Roscommon in his Essay on Translated Verse : — 

11 For who, without a qualm, hath ever looked 
On holy garbage though by Homer cooked ? 
Whose railing heroes and whose wounded gods 
Make some suspect he snores as well as nods." 

For the discerning student of the original, this monotony of 
butchery is redeemed by the splendid fiery energy that in- 
forms the best battle pieces, and by relieving touches of grim 
irony or exquisite pathos that escape the careless reader. But 
an explicit defence of Homer on this score is not required 
here, since the books selected for this volume contain little 
fighting. 

A source of interest in Homer which we must be careful 
neither to overrate nor underestimate is the light he throws 
on the life, institutions, and feelings of early man. The forty- 



xvi INTRODUCTION. 

eight books of the Iliad and Odyssey contain materials for an 
almost complete reconstruction of the life of the Homeric 
man : his conception of the universe ; his knowledge of Medi- 
terranean geography ; the animals, plants, metals, tools, and 
industrial processes with which he was acquainted ; his house, 
his family, his eating, his dress, his arms and armor, his gov- 
ernment in peace and war, his religion and mythology, his 
elementary, but generally wholesome, notions of conduct and 
life. This material has been systematically collected in three 
enormous volumes, 1 which, as the perhaps apocryphal German 
professor said, will spare you the trouble of reading the poems 
themselves. A brief, but quite sufficient account of " Homer's 
world " will be found in the second chapter of Jebb's Intro- 
duction to Homer, to which occasional reference is made in 
the notes. To summarize the summary here would serve no 
useful end. 

While recognizing this side of Homer, we must yet remem- 
ber that we are concerned with the Iliad as a masterpiece of 
literature. And, regarded as a great poem in the " grand 
style," the Iliad, in spite of its naivetes and " survivals," is 
more nearly akin to the other masterpieces of the world's 
literature than it is to the ballads and popular epics to which 
it is so often likened. For some purposes of scholars the 
Iliad may be instructively compared with the collection of 
Finnish legends known as the Kalevala, with the mediaeval 
French Chanson de Roland, or the Teutonic Edda and 
Niebelungen lied. But it is fundamentally discriminated from 
all " popular epics " by the fact that, like the JEneid and 
Paradise Lost, it ranks among the few supremely great and 
beautiful creations of the artistic genius of man — and they 
do not. The student then will make a mistake if, in watch- 
ing for the primitive or savage notes in the Iliad, he misses 
the essential grace, dignity, and elevation of its manner and 
1 Buchholz, Homerische Realien. 



INTRODUCTION. xvii 

outlook upon life. Whatever the Iliad may be as a " docu- 
ment," it is primarily for us a thrilling tale of noble, though 
simple, types of men and women told in magnificent verse. 
When Mr. Goldwin Smith, in his discussion of Cowper's 
translation, permits himself to speak of " Hector's An- 
dromache" as "the savage woman," he commits a grosser 
error in criticism than can be found in the most periwigged, 
high-heeled, and powdered paraphrase of Pope. 



A volume might easily be made of the praises of Homer. 
"My father, anxious that I should become a good man, made 
me learn all the poems of Homer," says the young man in 
Xenophon's Banquet. " The eulogists of Homer declare 
(says Plato) that he has been the educator of Hellas, and that 
he is profitable for education and for the ordering of human 
things, and that you should take him up again and again, and 
get to know him, and regulate your whole life according to him." 

^Eschylus said that his tragedies were scraps from the ban- 
quet of Homer, and indeed all Greek literature might be 
studied as a development or expansion of the Iliad and 
Odyssey. " Homer," says an eloquent moral philosopher of 
the first century,- " is the beginning, the middle, and the end, 
to every child, youth, and old man, imparting so much as each 
is able to accept." 

Latin literature began with a translation of Homer, which 
long remained the first schoolbook of Roman youth. Quin- 
tilian, in his treatise on the Education of an Orator, says, 
"As Aratus declares, we must begin with Jove, so we affirm 
that the true beginning is with Homer, from whom as from his 
own ocean all lesser streams and rivulets are derived." " All 
Greek gentlemen," says Ruskin, " were educated on Homer, all 
Roman gentlemen on Greek literature, all modern gentlemen 
on Greek and Roman literature." Victor Hugo cries out in 



xviii INTRODUCTION. 

his intense way : " Of all the books that are in the hands of 
men, two only must be studied by the poet — Homer and the 
Bible ; " and the critical Matthew Arnold deliberately affirms 
that " whatever may be the fate of classical study in general, 
attention will be more and more directed to the poetry of 
Homer, not indeed as part of a classical course, but as the 
most important poetical monument existing " Sayings like 
these, which might be multiplied indefinitely, testify to the im- 
mense hold of Homer upon the minds of men, to his infinite 
charm. The nature and cause of that charm are not easy to 
define. 

" Sweet, tell me what is Homer's sting, 

Old Homer's sting," she said: 

" He stirs my sluggish pulse like wine, 

He melts me like the wind of spice, 

Strong as strong Ajax' red right hand, 

And grand like Juno's eyes." 

The potency of this spell is not confined to those who can 
enjoy the music of the original. " A few days ago," said the 
French sculptor, Bouchardon, " an old French book that I 
never heard of fell into my hands. It is called the Iliad of 
Homer. Since I read that book men are fifteen feet high to 
me, and I cannot sleep. 1 '' Keats, too, knew the Iliad only in 
Chapman's version when he thrilled 

" Like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken; 

Or, like stout Cortez, when, with eagle eyes, 
He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 

Looked at each other with a wild surmise- 
Silent upon a peak in Darien." 

An appreciation of all the varied excellences that call forth 
these enthusiastic laudations can come only with close study. 
One chief cause of Homer's supreme fascination for the spirit 



INTRODUCTION. xix 

of modern man has been summed up in a sentence by 
Professor Jebb : " The union of consummate art in poetical 
form with the spiritual character of a simple age is the unique 
distinction of the Homeric poems.'" We live in a compli- 
cated indoor world of books, inherited traditions and institu- 
tions, the rationale of which we dimly apprehend, mechanical 
appliances that we use without understanding, social forms 
that disguise the play of natural feeling. It is our world. 
We should be content in no other. The aspirations of a 
Rousseau or a Thoreau for an impracticable life according to 
nature are mere rhetoric. And yet deep down below the 
surface the primitive instincts persist and thirst for satis- 
faction. We long for an outdoor life, for immediate contact 
with and direct manipulation of the material things and pro- 
cesses by which our daily life is sustained ; for a franker and 
more naive display of the feelings of the natural man ; for a 
relief from the dead superincumbent load of custom, tradition, 
and accumulation of the written word. This relief we find in 
" picnics " and summer outings — more adventurous spirits 
in exploration, pioneering, and war. But we experience its 
charm vicariously in the literature of more primitive ages that 
lived habitually in the direct contact with the physical world 
denied to us, and in the recognition of the great underlying 
facts of existence which the conventions of modern life dis- 
guise. But generally our enjoyment of this order of literature 
is impaired by an inner dissidence arising from the shock it 
gives to our tastes and moral instincts. The expression is 
not only naive, but grotesque and unbeautiful. The men 
and women are not only natural and unsophisticated, but 
brutal and animal — not of childlike but of childish mind, 
too remote for sympathy. In Homer, broadly speaking, this 
is not the case. He takes us back to what relatively to us is 
the childhood of the world. With him we fade far away 
and quite forget " the weariness, the fever, and the fret," of 



xx INTRODUCTIOxN. 

what in moods of yearning reaction toward nature we call 
the " strange disease of modern life." But escaping arti- 
ficiality, we still dwell in the realm; of an art whose never 
failing law is grace and beauty ; and, while freed from con- 
ventionality and explicit moral didacticism, we are still in a 
world of instinctively noble men and women, whose natures 
we can understand and with whose joy and grief we can feel 
an unforced sympathy. And to this unique combination of 
primitive simplicity with moral nobility and aesthetic charm, 
the lovers of Homer pay the tribute of an admiration that 
seems idolatrous to those who have never known his spell. 



II. POPE AND POPE'S ILIAD. 

Alexander Pope was born in London, May 22, 1688. 
His father was a Roman Catholic merchant who retired from 
business soon after the poet's birth, and established his home 
at Binfield in Windsor Forest. Owing to a sickly constitu- 
tion and the disabilities that attached to his religion, Pope's 
education was irregular. He was a precocious lad "who 
lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." He early acquired 
a smattering of the Greek, Latin, French, and Italian lan- 
guages, read widely if unsystematically in poetry and belles 
lettres, and made the acquaintance of the leading wits and 
literary men of the day. His first published work, the Pasto- 
rals, an artificial imitation of Virgil's Eclogues, appeared in 
1709, but was composed three or four years earlier. The 
Essay on Criticism followed, a cleverly rhymed summary of 
the best things said by Boileau, Horace, and the ancient rhet- 
oricians about literature, criticism, and style. In 171 2 he 
published the first edition of the Rape of the Lock, a dainty, 
ingenious, mock-heroic epic dealing with the " wrath," not of 
Achilles, but of a society belle who resented the liberty taken 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

by a noble young peer who had surreptitiously severed a lock 
of her hair. This was followed in 171 3 by the pastoral poem, 
Windsor Foi'est. At twenty-five (Dryden having been dead 
thirteen years) Pope was admittedly the first poet of the age, 
and when he issued the prospectus of a translation of Homer 
to be published by subscription men of all parties hastened to 
subscribe to what was felt to be a great national work. In 
November, 1713, "Bishop Kennet saw Swift in all his glory, 
and wrote an often quoted description of the scene. Swift 
was bustling about in the royal antechamber, swelling with 
conscious importance, distributing advice, promising patron- 
age, whispering to ministers, and filling the whole room with 
his presence. He finally ' instructed a young nobleman that 
the best poet in England was Mr. Pope, a Papist, who had 
begun a translation of Homer into English verse, for which 
he must have them all subscribe ; "for," says he, "the author 
shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for 
him ! ™ " 1 

The translation of Homer occupied Pope for ten or twelve 
years. The Iliad was completed in 1720, the Odyssey, of 
which his assistants, Fenton and Broome, did about half, in 
1726. . To this long labor Pope refers feelingly in a distich 
of the Dunciad (3. 331) : — 

" Hibernian politics, O Swift ! thy fate ; 
And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate." 

He had his reward, however. Subscriptions and sales 
brought him in about ^9000, an enormous sum for those 
days, and made him independent for life. In 171 8 he estab- 
lished himself for the remainder of his days in the villa at 
Twickenham on Thames that has always been associated with 
his name and w T ith the friendships of Arbuthnot, Gay, Boling- 
broke, and Swift, who visited him there. His other chief 
1 Leslie Stephen, Pope, in English Men of Letters, 



xxii INTRODUCTION. 

works are the Dunciad, 1728, a satire on his literary enemies, 
Theobald, Cibber, Dennis Lintot, and other subjects of the 
great goddess Dulness ; the Essay on Man, 1732-1734, a brill- 
iant epigrammatic versification of eighteenth-century rational- 
istic optimism and odds and ends of philosophy learned from 
Bolingbroke or picked up by desultory reading ; the Satires 
and Epistles of Horace Imitated, 173 3- 173 8; and Moral 
Essays (in verse), 1731— 1735. ^ e died on the' 30th of May, 
1744, and was buried at Twickenham. 

His rank as a poet has been endlessly debated by critics. 
The question is one of definition. If we reserve the name of 
poetry for exquisite song, for "natural magic," or the "vision 
and the faculty divine," for things like Keats's odes, Shelley's 
lyrics, and Wordsworth's best sonnets, then Pope and Dryden 
were, as Matthew Arnold says, rather great prose writers in 
verse than great poets. If terse epigrammatic expression of 
unimpeachable good sense in smoothly rhymed verse suffices 
to make a poet, then few names in English literature stand 
higher than Pope's. His contribution to the dictionary of 
familiar quotations exceeds that of all but Shakspere. 

The Iliad is perhaps his greatest achievement. Like 
Amyot's Plutarch, Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyam, and Jowett's 
Plato, it holds the place in literary history rather of an 
original masterpiece than of a translation. Modern taste 
demands that the translator of Homer shall endeavor to re- 
produce for us by conscious archaism something of the 
atmosphere of the world's childhood. Pope did not attempt 
that. Scholars who know the original will be provoked into 
repeating the words of Bentley : " It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, 
but you must not call it Homer." But regarded simply as a 
readable poem, reproducing the substance of the Homeric 
story in a style of sustained finish, vivacity, and point, it 
occupies a place which no other version can claim. Its merits 
were amply recognized. Johnson said that it had tuned 



INTRODUCTION. xxiii 

the English tongue, and that it was the noblest version of 
poetry the world had ever seen. Gray declared that no other 
translation could ever equal it, and Gibbon said that it had 
every merit except that of fidelity to the original. Byron 
thought that no one would ever lay it down except for Homer 
himself. Endless is the tale of the poets and writers whose 
biographers affirm that their first literary inspiration was de- 
rived from its pages. It became the accepted model of poetic 
style for a century. Coleridge observes that it was the main 
source of that pseudo-poetic diction for which he and Words- 
worth endeavored to substitute the unaffected language of 
the heart. Modern taste has now grown weary of this artifi- 
cial diction in which "a woman is called a nymph — and 
women generally are 'the fair' — in which shepherds are con- 
scious swains, and a poet invokes the muses, and strikes a 
lyre, and breathes on a reed.*' 11 But it has exercised an enor- 
mous influence on the st)de of those who repudiate it, and an 
observant reader could' collect from Byron, Scott, nay, even 
from Wordsworth and Shelley, a long list of poetical tags, 
epithets, and paraphrases taken straight from the pages of 
Pope's Iliad. 

Many attempts have been made to supersede it in popular 
favor, but for the majority of readers it still remains the one 
poetical translation of Homer. The early versions of Hobbes 
and Ogilby are of interest only to professional students of 
literature. Chapman is praised on the faith of Keats's noble 
sonnet, and because of occasional spirited passages and 
exquisite lines. It is true in a sense, as Lowell says, that he 
is the only translator who seems to be inspired by Homer. 
But the rugged rhythms, the obscurity of the syntax, the 
fantastic Elizabethan conceits, and the long uninspired tracts 
of doggerel that intervene between the fine quotable pas- 
sages make him intolerable in continuous perusal. Cowper, 
1 Leslie Stephen. 



xxiv INTRODUCTION. 

in his blank verse version, aimed at uniting Miltonic state- 
liness with fidelity to Homeric simplicity, but succeeded only 
in being pompous and dull. All these, together with the 
quaintly exact version of Professor Newman, are interestingly 
discussed in Matthew Arnold's classic lectures On Translating 
Homer. There are four Homeric qualities which Arnold 
thinks the translator must especially feel and strive to repro- 
duce : (i) He is eminently rapid; (2) he is plain and 
direct in his syntax and in his words ; (3) he is plain and 
direct in his matter and ideas ; (4) he is noble in his 
manner. 

Since the publication of Matthew Arnold's essay we have 
had, among others, the estimable blank verse translations of 
Lord Derby and of Bryant, and Way's spirited rendering in a 
long rhymed anapaestic hexameter — a favorite with many 
readers. No definitive translation of Homer is possible, for 
every generation must reinterpret him in order to blend 
Homeric sentiment with its own, in the measure demanded 
by its taste. Of late, the majority of readers prefer the 
literal prose version in slightly archaic and consciously simple 
English of Lang, Leaf, and Myers. Perhaps the best course 
for the student would be to use this in conjunction with Pope, 
glancing now and again at Chapman for the inspiration of his 
fine passages. 

The study of the style and diction of Pope's Iliad must 
start from what Matthew Arnold says of them. Pope, he 
says, renders the rapidity of Homer's movement, and, to some 
extent, the plainness and directness of his ideas. He is at his 
best in a passage of strong emotional and oratorical move- 
ment. For, though he has not the grand style of Homer, his 
literary and rhetorical manner is, in its way, well suited to 
grand matters, and so he " comes off well enough so long as 
he has passion, or oratory, or a great crisis to deal with." 
Nevertheless, as Bentley said, it is not Homer. The rhymes 



INTRODUCTION. xxv 

link the lines in couples, while in Homer they flow on and on. 
Pope indicates separation by antithesis, while Homer marks 
it by moving on and away. Then, though he has not Chap- 
man's fantasticality, though he is simple in ideas like Homer, 
he is not like Homer simple and direct in expression. " One 
feels that Homer's thought has passed through a literary and 
rhetorical crucible, and come out highly intellectualized." He 
fails especially, therefore, in level passages of narration and 
description. In descriptions of nature, the failure is disas- 
trous ; for whereas Homer, in Wordsworth's phrase, "com- 
poses with his eye on the object," Pope writes with his eye on 
his style, and his endeavor is to dress up nature to advantage 
in an eighteenth-century costume. Starting from this general 
characterization, the student may observe more specifically 
the following traits : — 

(i) Pope does not really know Greek or Homer or the 
primitive mind. His own early studies were all in the com- 
paratively artificial poetry of Rome, or in those French and 
English writers whose inspiration is mainly Latin. So, when 
a passage of the Iliad reminds him of anything in Virgil, 
Dry den, or Milton, he gives to thought, imagery, or expression 
a Latin turn quite alien to the spirit of Homer. He employs 
the Latin names for the Greek gods. Hades is " Pluto's 
gloomy reign " (regno) ; a god is a "power " (numen) ; the 
Achaeans are " Greece " (Grecia) ; Achilles " breathes the vital 
air " in Virgilian phrase ; barley grains are the salted cake . 
(salsa mola) ; the ambrosial locks of Zeus are " the sacred 
honors " of his head ; the " gods feast " is " the powers indulge 
the genial rite " ; the " desire of food was spent," becomes, in 
Virgilian phrase "the rage of hunger was repressed," etc. 
Further illustrations may be grouped under the following 
heads : — 

(a) Latinisms, or the use of words derived from the Latin with more 
or less feeling for their original force : e.g. explore, " look for " ; con- 



xxvl INTRODUCTION. 

fessed, " revealed," " acknowledged " ; horrid, " bristling " ; secure, 
"without care or fear"; expiate, "purify"; act, "perform"; decent, 
" seemly," " becoming " ; desist to, " cease from " ; selected, " set apart " ; 
aspire, "shoot up"; impotent, "not master of," "uncontrolled"; merit 
well, " deserve well " ; orient, " rising " ; expire, " emit " ; vulgar, " com- 
mon"; contain, "check," "hold in"; exert, "put forth"; obtests, "ap- 
peals to"; expects, "awaits"; prevents, "anticipates"; neglect, "not 
heed " ; relics, " remains " ; produce, " bring forth " ; certain, " unerring " ; 
nerves, " sinews ". ; meditated, "practised," " intended " ; innocent, " harm- 
less " ; false terrors, " unreal," " imagined " ; resulting, " boundingback " ; 
patient of, "tolerant of" ; repugnant to, "struggling against"; sincere, 
" unalloyed " ; office, " service " ; strict, " close " ; devoted, " fated," " con- 
secrated " ; tempt, " make trial of" ; pest, " bane," " ruin " ; commit, " en- 
gage," "join in battle " ; conduct, " guidance." To these may be added 
the wearisome iteration of indulge, scene, conscious, invade, prospect, 
honors, monument, pledge, genial, refulgent, etc. 

(b) Among the explicit Virgilian reminiscences are: "breathes the 
vital air " (sEn. i. 387) ; " what rage can move celestial minds ? " (sEn. 
1. n) ; " the soul indignant seeks the realms of night," cf. 6. 679, " and 
Greece indignant through her seas returns " {JEn. 12. 952) ; " and trem- 
bling man sees all his labors vain " (sEn. 2. 305-7, cf. Ov. Met. 1. 273) ; 
" Hector he sought, in search of Hector turn'd His eyes around, for 
Hector only burn'd " (/£«. 9. 438) ; " while Jove descends in sluicy 
sheets of rain " {Eclogue 7. 60) ; " enough is given to fame " {/En. 2. 291, 
sat pair icB Priamoque datum); "around his head an iron tempest 
rained" {ALn. 12. 284) ; "release your smoking coursers from the car" 
(Georgics, 2. 542) ; "woes of which so large a part was thine," 6. 581 
{ALn. 2. 6) ; " garments stiff with gold " (sEn. 11. 72). Cf. further notes 
on : 1. 9-10, 1. 265, 1. 354, 1. 614, 22. 346, 22. 417, 22. 469, 6. 114. 

(c) Miltonic reminiscences are : " Prince thou art met " ; " or bids the 
brazen throat of war to roar " ; " beneath the whelming tide " ; " native 
realm " ; " massey " ; " close consult " ; " bare his red arm " ; " ran purple 
to the main " ; " curb the fiery steed " ; " gloomy as night " ; " fiery del- 
uge " ; " fit mast for some great admiral " ; " thronged in bright arms " ; 
" a shout that tore heaven's concave " ; " native seats " ; " auxiliar 
forces"; " his huge tempestuous sway"; "grave Nestor then in grace- 
ful act arose " ; " and sacred night her awful shade extend." Cf. also 
1. 204 n., 1. 300 n., 1. 354, 1. 643, 1. 690, 1. 711, 1. 86, 6. 170. 

(d) The reminiscences of Dryden defy enumeration. The diction 
of Pope's Iliad is essentially that of Dryden's Virgil, and the conception 



INTRODUCTION. xxvii 

of the art of translation is the same, though Pope has realized it more 
brilliantly. Among the practically identical phrases common to both 
are : " Spires salute the sky " ; " invade the sky " ; " groves of lances " ; 
"my (soul's far) better part"; "totters to her fall"; "thunderbolt of 
war" (Lucretius's ''belli fulmen") ; "laboring oars"; "strict em- 
brace " ; " sounding shore " ; " precipitates his flight " ; " female train " ; 
"Trojan train"; "pious train"; "menial train," etc.; "blooming 
beauties" ; " goddess of the various bow" = Iris ; " power ignipotent," 
"forging power " = Vulcan ; "blue-eyed maid " = Athena ; "liquid 
sky"; "bird of Jove"; "queen of love"; "thundering through the 
field " ; " watery reign " ; " a sylvan scene " ; " sorrow " = tears ; " por- 
tents and prodigies " ; " prodigal " of life, blood, or breath ; " vital air " ; 
"bare his red arm" (from Milton); "hard condition" (Shakspere) ; 
"senate" of the skies (cf. Virg. sEn. 10. i, 3, 5, 97). Cf. 1. 679 n., 
1. 461 n., 1. 614 n., 6. 624 n. 

A few phrases also are borrowed from Dryden's version of the first 
book and of the Parting of Hector and Andromache. Cf. 1. 35, 1. 55, 
1. 74, 1. 112, 1. 144, 1. 187, 1. 294, 1. 341, 1. 685, 6. 480, 6. 503, 6. 546-547, 
6. 580, 6. 584, 6. 599. , . 

(2) Another group of characteristics may be referred to 
Pope's conception of the literary dignity of the epic. To 
preserve this dignity he 

(a) Softens or omits naive, crude, or cruel touches that would 
offend the ears polite of eighteenth-century wits. In the comparison 
of Ajax to an ass, for example, the word " ass " is evaded by the para- 
phrase " the slow beast with heavy strength endued." The cruder 
details of old Phoenix's nursing of Achilles are omitted (Book IX). 
Other instances are: the hurling of Vulcan from heaven, 1.760; Aga- 
memnon's imprecations on Troy, 6. 74 ; the motive assigned for 
Glaucus's generosity, 6. 290; Helen's self-reproach, 6.432; Achilles's 
rebuke of Apollo, 22. 29-30 ; Priam's foreboding of his fate, 22. 95-100 ; 
Hector's flight, 22. 179 ; Priam's ecstasy of grief, 22. 528, 24. 201, 295 ; his 
anger at his sons, 24. 332 ; Hecuba's wish to eat the liver of Achilles, 
24. 262; Achilles's impatient warning to Priam, 24. 717. Cf. also 6. 147. 

(b) He suggests allegorical interpretations of the gods of the my- 
thology, and especially he strives to speak of Zeus in a manner worthy 
of the Supreme Being of eighteenth-century Deism. Cf. on 1. 276, 
I- 55 6 > *• 7°5» I- 7^0 sqq., 1. 521. 



xxviii INTRODUCTION. 

(<?). He "improves" Homer's architecture by the introduction of 
spires, vaulted domes, and other dignified accessories. Cf. i. 576, 
6. 304-310, 6. 371, 6. 393, 6. 490, 22. 519, 24. 204. 

(d) He affects an un-Homeric stateliness and pseudo-dignity of 
expression in describing the movements and gestures of his personages, 
as if they were moving in a court minuet or standing for a tableau : e.g. 
"uprising slow," 1. 95; "slow from his seat," 1. 330; "all viewed with 
awe," 1. 337; "the chiefs in sullen majesty retired," 1. 401 ; "and oft 
look'd back, slow-moving o'er the strand," 1. 453; "Jove on his couch 
reclined his awful head," 1. 780; " through streets of palaces and walks 
of state," 6. 490; "high o'er the slain," etc., 22. 471; "slow-moving 
toward the shore," 22. 493; "and forth she paced majestically sad," 
24. 124; "with solemn pace through various rooms he went," 24. 578; 
" a solemn scene," 24. 803 ; " majestically slow," 24. 869 ; " in solemn sad- 
ness and majestic grief," 9. 16, etc., etc. In this respect the racy vigor 
of Dryden's version of the first book is an amusing contrast to Pope. 
Cf. 1. 705-711 n., 1. 328 n., 1. 417 n., 1. 760 n., 1. 770 n. 

(3) Whenever it seems to Pope that the literary sim- 
plicity of Homer has missed an opportunity, he adds {a) an 
ingenious conceit, (d) a bit of moralizing, or (c) a sententious 
maxim. 

(a) Cf. 1. 156, 1. 215-216 n. ; "as I from thee," 1. 311; 1. 394 n. 
1. 457 n., 1. 509 ; " be still yourselves and Hector asks no more," 6. 138 ; 
" till heaps of dead alone defend her wall," 6. 411 ; " woes of which so 
large a part was thine," 6. 581 ; " and rise the Hector of the future age," 
6.609; "and with them turns the raised spectator's soul," 22. 216; 
"Achilles absent was Achilles still," 22. 418; "no — to the dogs that 
carcass I resign," 22. 438 ; " and teach him mercy when a father prays," 
24. 380; "in all my equal but in misery," 24. 603. Cf. also 24. 617, 
24. 778, 24. 839, 22. 87, 22. 149. 

{&) " Rule thou thyself," 1. 373 ; " a dreadful lesson of exampled 
fate," 6. 75, 6. 329-33, 6. 290 ; " boasting is but an art our fears to blind," 
22. 361 ; " while some ignobler," 22. 467 ; " unworthy of himself and of 
the dead," 22. 496 ; " and to his conquest add this glory more," 24. 146 ; 
24. 193-194, 24. 530-53 6 - 

(c) 1. 250, " That kings are subject to the gods alone," 1. 371, 1. 383, 
1. 731, 6. 427, 22. 100. 



INTRODUCTION. xxix 

(4) The rhetorical elaboration and intellectualization of 
Homers style by Pope shows itself in : — 

(a) Ornamental periphrasis : " favoring power " = Apollo ; " captive 
fair " ; " fairest of her sex " ; " bright partner of his awful reign " = Hera ; 
" blooming beauties blessed my arms " ; " the younger brothers of the 
pole " = the lesser gods ; " the sea-green sisters " = the Nereids ; " blue- 
eyed maid " = Athena ; " sacred senate of the skies " ; " indulge the genial 
rite " = feast ; " the enamored Phrygian boy " = Paris ; " sacred honors 
of our head " = hair ; " brow's large honors " — horns ; " those graceful 
honors " = mane ; " silver-footed dame " = Thetis; " the many-colored 
maid " = Iris; "Jove's imperial queen " = Hera; "queen of love " = 
Aphrodite ; " nymphs of Troy's illustrious race " = daughters of Priam ; 
11 blustering bretheren of the sky " = winds ; " the purple product of the 
autumnal year " = grapes ; " sprightly juice " == wine ; " Pylian sage " or 
" sage protector of the Greeks " = Nestor ; " the brightest of the female 
kind " = Helen ; " tyrant of the ethereal reign " = Zeus ; " fleecy care " = 
sheep ; " fleecy winter " = snow ; " the laughter-loving dame " = Aphro- 
dite ; " the strong sovereign of the plumy race " = the eagle ; " patron of 
the bow " = Apollo ; " power ignipotent " = Vulcan ; " the sylvan war " = 
hunting, or cutting wood ; " such objects as distract the fair " = corpses ; 
"life's purple tide " = blood; "refulgent lamp of night " = the moon; 
" briny torrent," " infectious sorrows," " soft sorrows " = tears ; " Ceres' 
sacred floor" = threshing-floor; "mixed the tender shower " = wept ; 
" briny drops " = sweat ; " missive wood " or " pointed death " = spear ; 
" paths of fame " = right; " balmy blessings of the night " — sleep ; "the 
blue languish of soft Alia's eye " = blue-eyed Alia, and so on ad i?ifi- 
nitum. 

(J?) Antithesis, under which head we may include both real antithesis 
of thought and the favorite balanced structure of two nouns and two 
verbs nicely adjusted in a single line : " and for the king's offence the 
people died " ; " the priest may pardon and the god may spare " ; " we 
share with justice as with toil we gain " ; " forced to deplore when impo- 
tent to save " ; " if in my youth even these esteemed me wise ; Do you, 
young warriors, hear my age advise"; "and pay in glory what in life 
you owe " ; " the life which others p.iy, let us bestow, And give to fame 
what we to nature owe " ; " she scorned the champion but the man she 
loved " ; " thy love the motive and thy charms the prize " ; " of lawless 
force shall lawless Mars complain " ; " obliged the wealthy and relieved 
the poor " ; " whose virtue charmed him as her beauty fired " ; "no force 



xxx INTRODUCTION. 

could tame them, and no toil could tire." The omission of the object 
with the second verb is a characteristic and often a necessity of this bal- 
anced structure. Cf. Johnson's " no dangers fright him, and no labors 
tire." Pope's frequent use of this device gives his verse a wholly un- 
Homeric cast. * 

(c) The use of conventional literary metaphors now familiar to every 
schoolboy, but not employed by Homer : " vows be crowned " ; " plough 
the watery plains " ; " tyrant, I well deserved thy galling chain " ; " tide 
of combat"; "where fame is reaped"; "prodigal of breath"; "my 
heart weeps blood " ; " for he read the skies " ; " the bitter dregs of for- 
tune's cup"; "jaws of fate"; "sealed in sleep"; "dew of sleep"; 
" pledge " = child ; " silver hairs " ; "all his soul on his Patroclus fed " ; 
"glorious face of day"; "brazen throat of war"; "a dawn of joy " ; 
" stage of war " ; " thunderbolt of war " ; "iron face of war"; "thirsty 
sand" ; "soft arms of sleep" ; " discourse the medicine of the mind" ; 
"when his earthly part shall mount in fire"; "drunk with renown"; 
" drown in bowls." 

(d) The substitution of abstract for concrete forms of speech : e.g. 
" Heaven " or " the skies " for Zeus or the gods ; " Greece " or " Troy" 
for Greeks or Trojans; "copious death " = numerous dead, i. 534; 
"feathered fates," "pointed death," "feathered vengeance," "flying 
death " = arrows or spears ; " thus spoke the prudence and the fears of 
age," 1. 96; "service, faith, and justice plead in vain," 1. 509; "glitter- 
ing terrors" = helmet, 6. 600; "fate and fierce Achilles close behind," 
22. 228 ; " conquest blazes," 22. 280. 

(5) Other minor non-Homeric traits, as : — 

(a) Rhetorical use of pathetic repetition : 6. 458-460, " this day — this 
day " ; 22. 51, " stay not, stay not " ; 22. 106, " this — this " ; 22. 530, " O let 
me, let me " ; 22. 507, " I fear, I fear " ; 24. 105-106, " plunged — plunged " 
24. 497, "where, oh, where"; 24. 598-599, "ah think — think" 
24. 622-623, "for him — for him"; 24. 938, "which never, never" 
1. 135-137 "for this— for this"; 6. 68, "shall these, shall these" 
6. 365, " the various textures and the various dies " ; 1. 544-545. 

(b) The historical present : 1. 17, " the venerable father stands " ; cf. 
1. 410-415, 1. 490, 1. 622, 6. 21, 22. 207, 24. 395-396, etc. 

(c) Use of third person for second or first: 1.269, "descends 
Minerva"; 1. 444, " unmov'd as death Achilles shall remain"; 1. 394, 
1. 474, "why grieves my son?" 1. 318, 6. 180, 6. 319, 6. 422, 6. 671, 
6. 559, 22. 15, etc. 



INTRODUCTION. xxxi 

(d) Use of a resumptive phrase in loose apposition with a preceding 
sentence or description : i. 432, " decent confusion " ; 22. 41, " terrific 
glory"; 22.638, "frugal compassion"; 24. 138, "maternal sorrows," 
etc. This usage is not altogether unknown to Homer. 

(e) Omission of verb of saying before a speech : 1. 107, " to whom 
Peleides " ; 1. 167, " then thus the king " ; 22. 233, " then Pallas thus " ; 
22. 299, 24. 115, 24. 241, 24. 411, etc. 

(/) Apostrophe: 22. 55, " implacable Achilles ! mightst thou be"; 
24. 275, " I go, ye gods ! " 24. 307, 6. 518. 

(6) The metre is the prevailing verse form of the time, the 
rhymed heroic couplet of five iambic feet to a verse. Pope's 
lines are usually quite smooth and " regular," though he admits 
in moderation the substitutions found in all iambic verse, 
rhymed or unrhymed from Shakspere and Milton down. 
The only points requiring notice here are : — 

(a) The rhymes. Pope was a careless rhymer, but the pronuncia- 
tion of his day differed from our own in some respects, and in some 
respects was unsettled. He rhymes : join with line, combine, incline, 
etc. ; war with care, fare, and dare, etc. ; revere with prayer ; surveys 
with seas and way with sea; threat with fleet; detained with land; priest 
with pest ; come with doom ; repressed with feast ; beheld with field ; 
lost with host; deep with ship; held with shield; frown with throne; 
name w T ith stream ; desert with heart ; decreed with dead, etc. 

(b) In place of the couplet the triplet of three rhymes is sometimes 
used, 6. 322-324 ; 1. 355 ; 22. 63, 164 ; 24. 27, 84, 567, 685, 777, 972. 

(c) The so-called Alexandrine line of six iambic feet is occasionally 
admitted, especially to wind up impressively a poetical paragraph. The 
name is seemingly derived from its use in old French epics on Alexan- 
der. Pope ridicules and exemplifies it thus in the Essay on Criticism : — 

" A needless Alexandrine ends the song 
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along." 

The Alexandrine of modern French poetry, though it retains the 
name, is really anapaestic in movement and wholly unlike Pope's line. 
Cf. 1. 8, "Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove"; 
22. 276, " Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight " ; 22. 
368; 22. 166; 24. 779, "The rock forever lasts, the tears forever flow" 
— where the rhetorical intention is obvious. 




y. Flax man and A. S chill. 



THE ILIAD. 



BOOK I. 



THE CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON. 



Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring 

Of woes unnumber'd, heav'nly Goddess, sing ! 

That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign 

The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain : 

Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore, 5 

Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore : 

Since great Achilles and Atrides strove, 

Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove ! 

Declare, O Muse ! in what ill-fated hour 
Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power? iq 
Latona's son a dire contagion spread, 
And heap'd the camp with mountains of the dead ; 



2 THE ILIAD. 

The king of men his reverend priest defied, 
And, for the king's offence, the people died. 

For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain 15 

His captive daughter from the victor's chain. 
Suppliant the venerable father stands ; 
Apollo's awful ensigns grace his hands : 
By these he begs : and, lowly bending down, 
Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown. 20 

He sued to all, but chief implor'd for grace 
The brother-kings of Atreus' royal race : 

" Ye kings and warriors ! may your vows be crown' d, 
And Troy's proud walls lie level with the ground ; 
May Jove restore you, when your toils are o'er, 25 

Safe to the pleasures of your native shore. 
But oh ! relieve a wretched parent's pain, 
And give Chryseis to these arms again ; 
If mercy fail, yet let my presents move, 
And dread avenging Phcebus, son of Jove." 30 

The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare, 
The priest to reverence, and release the fair. 
Not so Atrides : he, with kingly pride, 
Repuls'd the sacred sire, and thus replied : 

" Hence on thy life, and fly these hostile plains, 35 
Nor ask, presumptuous, what the king detains : 
Hence, with thy laurel crown, and golden rod, 
Nor trust too far those ensigns of thy god. 
Mine is thy daughter, priest, and shall remain ; 
And prayers, and tears, and bribes, shall plead in vain ; 40 
Till time shall rifle every youthful grace, 
And age dismiss her from my cold embrace, 
In daily labours of the loom employ' d, 



BOOK I. 3 

Or doom'd to deck the bed she once enjoy'd. 

Hence then ! to Argos shall the maid retire, 45 

Far from her native soil, and weeping sire." 

The trembling priest along the shore return'd, 
And in the anguish of a father mourn'd. 
Disconsolate, not daring to complain, 
Silent he wander'd by the sounding main : 50 

Till, safe at distance, to his god he prays, 
The god who darts around the world his rays. 

" O Smintheus ! sprung from fair Latona's line, 
Thou guardian power of Cilia the divine, 
Thou source of light ! whom Tenedos adores, 55 

And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa's shores ; 
If e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane, 
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain ; 
God of the silver bow ! thy shafts employ, 
Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy.' 7 60 

Thus Chryses pray'd : the fav'ring power attends, 
And from Olympus' lofty tops descends. 
Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound ; 
Fierce as he mov'd, his silver shafts resound. 
Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread, 65 

And gloomy darkness roll'd around his head. 
The fleet in view, he twang' d his deadly bow, 
And hissing fly the feather'd fates below. 
On mules and dogs th' infection first began ; 
And last, the vengeful arrows fix'd in man. 70 

For nine long nights, through all the dusky air 
The pyres thick-flaming shot a dismal glare. 
But ere the tenth revolving day was run/ 
Inspir'd by Juno, Thetis' god-like son 



4 THE ILIAD. 

Conven'd to council all the Grecian train ; 75 

For much the goddess mourn'd her heroes slain. 

Th' assembly seated, rising o'er the rest, 
Achilles thus the king of men address'd : 

" Why leave we not the fatal Trojan shore, 
And measure back the seas we cross'd before? 80 

The plague destroying whom the sword would spare, 
'Tis time to save the few remains of war. 
But let some prophet or some sacred sage, 
Explore the cause of great Apollo's rage ; 
Or learn the wasteful vengeance to remove 85 

By mystic dreams, for dreams descend from Jove. 
If broken vows this heavy curse have laid, 
Let altars smoke, and hecatombs be paid. 
So heaven aton'd shall dying Greece restore, 
And Phoebus dart his burning shafts no more." 90 

He said, and sat : when Chalcas thus replied, 
Chalcas the wise, the Grecian priest and guide, 
That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view 
The past, the present, and the future knew : 
Uprising slow the venerable sage 95 

Thus spoke the prudence and the fears of age : 

" Belov'd of Jove, Achilles ! would'st thou know 
Why angry Phoebus bends his fatal bow? 
First give thy faith, and plight a prince's word 
Of sure protection, by thy pow'r and sword, 100 

For I must speak what wisdom would conceal, 
And truths, invidious to the great, reveal. 
Bold is the task, when subjects, grown too wise, 
Instruct a monarch where his error lies ; 
For though we deem the short-liv'd fury past, 105 




F7-iedrich Preller. 



Iliad — Book i., 50-68. 



BOOK I. 5 

Tis sure, the mighty will revenge at last." 

To whom Pelides. " From thy inmost soul 
Speak what thou know'st, and speak without control. 
Ev'n by that god I swear, who rules the day, 
To whom thy hands the vows of Greece convey, no 

And whose blest oracles thy lips declare ; 
Long as Achilles breathes this vital air, 
No daring Greek, of all the numerous band, 
Against his priest shall lift an impious hand : 
Not ev'n the chief by whom our hosts are led, 115 

The king of kings, shall touch that sacred head," 

Encourag'd thus, the blameless man replies : 
" Nor vows unpaid, nor slighted sacrifice, 
But he, our chief, provok'd the raging pest, 
Apollo's vengeance for his injur'd priest. 120 

Nor will the god's awaken'd fury cease, 
But plagues shall spread, and funeral fires increase, 
Till the great king, without a ransom paid, 
To her own Chrysa send the black- ey'd maid. 
Perhaps, with added sacrifice and prayer, 125 

The priest may pardon, and the god may spare." 

The prophet spoke ; when, with a gloomy frown, 
The monarch started from his shining throne ; 
Black choler fill'd his breast that boil'd with ire, 
And from his eyeballs flash'd the living fire. 130 

" Augur accurs'd ! denouncing mischief still, 
Prophet of plagues, for ever boding ill ! 
Still must that tongue some wounding message bring, 
And still thy priestly pride provoke thy king? 
For this are Phoebus' oracles explor'd, 135 

To teach the Greeks to murmur at their lord? 



THE ILIAD. 



For this with falsehoods is my honour stain'd ; 

Is heaven offended, and a priest profaned, 

Because my prize, my beauteous maid, I hold, 

And heav'nly charms prefer to proffer'd gold ? 140 

A maid, unmatch'd in manners as in face, 

Skill'd in each art, and crown'd with every grace ; 

Not half so dear were Clytaemnestra's charms, 

When first her blooming beauties bless'd my arms. 

Yet, if the gods demand her, let her sail ; 145 

Our cares are only for the public weal : 

Let me be deem'd the hateful cause of all, 

And suffer, rather than my people fall. 

The prize, the beauteous prize, I will resign, 

So dearly valued, and so justly mine. 150 

But since for common good I yield the fair, 

My private loss let grateful Greece repair ; 

Nor unrewarded let your prince complain, 

That he alone has fought and bled in vain." 

" Insatiate king ! " (Achilles thus replies) 155 

" Fond of the pow'r, but fonder of the prize ! 
Wouldst thou the Greeks their lawful prey should yield, 
The due reward of many a well-fought field? 
The spoils of cities razed, and warriors slain, 
We share with justice, as with toil we gain : • 160 

But to resume whate'er thy avarice craves, 
(That trick of tyrants) may be borne by slaves. 
Yet if our chief for plunder only fight, 
The spoils of Ilion shall thy loss requite, 
Whene'er, by Jove's decree, our conqu'ring pow'rs 165 
Shall humble to the dust her lofty tow'rs." 

Then thus the king. " Shall I my prize resign 



BOOK I. 7 

With tame content, and thou possess'd of thine ? 
Great as thou art, and like a god in fight, 
Think not to rob me of a soldier's right. 170 

At thy demand shall I restore the maid? 
First let the just equivalent be paid ; 
Such as a king might ask ; and let it be 
A treasure worthy her, and worthy me. 
Or grant me this, or with a monarch's claim 175 

This hand shall seize some other captive dame. 
The mighty Ajax shall his prize resign, 
Ulysses' spoils, or e'en thy own be mine. 
The man who suffers, loudly may complain ; 
And rage he may, but he shall rage in vain. 180 

But this when time requires. It now remains 
We launch a bark to plough the watery plains, 
And waft the sacrifice to Chrysa's shores, 
With chosen pilots, and with lab'ring oars. 
Soon shall the fair the sable ship ascend, 185 

And some deputed prince the charge attend. 
This Creta's king, or Ajax shall fulfil, 
Or wise Ulysses see perform'd our will ; 
Or, if our royal pleasure shall ordain, 
Achilles' self conduct her o'er the main ; 190 

Let fierce Achilles, dreadful in his rage, 
The god propitiate, and the pest assuage." 
At this, Pelides, frowning stern, replied : 
" O tyrant, arm'd with insolence and pride ! 
Inglorious slave to interest, ever join'd 195 

With fraud, unworthy of a royal mind ! 
What gen'rous Greek, obedient to thy word, 
Shall form an ambush, or shall lift the sword? 



8 THE ILIAD. 

What cause have I to war at thy decree? 

The distant Trojans never injured me : 200 

To Phthia's realms no hostile troops they led ; 

Safe in her vales my warlike coursers fed ; 

Far hence remov'd, the hoarse-resounding main, 

And walls of rocks, secure my native reign, 

Whose fruitful soil luxuriant harvests grace, 205 

Rich in her fruits, and in her martial race. 

Hither we sail'd, a voluntary throng, 

T' avenge a private not a public wrong : 

What else to Troy th' assembled nations draws, 

But thine, ungrateful, and thy brother's cause ? 210 

Is this the pay our blood and toils deserve, 

Disgraced and injur'd by the man we serve? 

And dar'st thou threat to snatch my prize away, 

Due to the deeds of many a dreadful day? 

A prize as small, O tyrant ! match'd with thine, 215 

As thy own actions if compar'd to mine. 

Thine in each conquest is the wealthy prey, 

Though mine the sweat and danger of the day. 

Some trivial present to my ships I bear, 

Or barren praises pay the wounds of war. 220 

But know, proud monarch, I'm thy slave no more : 

My fleet shall waft me to Thessalia's shore. 

Left by Achilles on the Trojan plain, 

What spoils, what conquests, shall Atrides gain?" 

To this the king : " Fly, mighty warrior ! fly, 225 

Thy aid we need not, and thy threats defy : 
There want not chiefs in such a cause to fight, 
And Jove himself shall guard a monarch's right. 
Of all the kings (the gods' distinguish'd care) 



BOOK I. 9 

To pow'r superior none such hatred bear ; 230 

Strife and debate thy restless soul employ, 

And wars and horrors are thy savage joy. 

If thou hast strength, 'twas Heav'n that strength bestow'd, 

For know, vain man ! thy valour is from God. 

Haste, launch thy vessels, fly with speed away, 235 

Rule thy own realms with arbitrary sway : 

I heed thee not, but prize at equal rate 

Thy short-liv'd friendship, and thy groundless hate. 

Go, threat thy earth-born Myrmidons ; but here 

'Tis mine to threaten, prince, and thine to fear. 240 

Know, if the god the beauteous dame demand, 

My bark shall waft her to her native land ; 

But then prepare, imperious prince ! prepare, 

Fierce as thou art, to yield thy captive fair : 

E'en in thy tent I'll seize the blooming prize, 245 

Thy lov'd Brisei's, with the radiant eyes. 

Hence shalt thou prove my might, and curse the hour, 

Thou stood'st a rival of imperial pow'r ; 

And hence to all our host it shall be known 

That kings are subject to the gods alone." 250 

Achilles heard, with grief and rage oppress'd ; 
His heart svvell'd high, and labour'd in his breast. 
Distracting thoughts by turns his bosom rul'd, 
Now fir'd by wrath, and now by reason cooPd : 
That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword, 255 
Force thro' the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord ; 
This whispers soft his vengeance to control 
And calm the rising tempest of his soul. 
Just as in anguish of suspense he stay'd, 
While half unsheath'd appear'd the glitt'ring blade, 260 



io THE ILIAD. 

Minerva swift descended from above, 

Sent by the sister and the wife of Jove ; 

(For both the princes claim'd her equal care ;) 

Behind she stood, and by the golden hair 

Achilles seiz'd ; to him alone confess'd ; 265 

A sable cloud conceal'd her from the rest. 

He sees, and sudden to the goddess cries, 

Known by the flames that sparkle from her eyes : 

" Descends Minerva, in her guardian care, 
A heav'nly witness of the wrongs I bear 270 

From Atreus' son ? Then let those eyes that view 
The daring crime, behold the vengeance too." 

" Forbear ! " (the progeny of Jove replies) 
" To calm thy fury I forsake the skies : 
Let great Achilles, to the gods resign'd, 275 

To reason yield the empire o'er his mind. 
By awful Juno this command is giv'n ; 
The king and you are both the care of heav'n. 
The force of keen reproaches let him feel, 
But sheathe, obedient, thy revenging steel. 280 

For I pronounce (and trust a heav'nly pow'r) 
Thy injur'd honour has its fated hour, 
When the proud monarch shall thy arms implore, 
And bribe thy friendship with a boundless store. 
Then let revenge no longer bear the sway, 285 

Command thy passions, and the gods obey." 

To her Pelides : " With regardful ear, 
'Tis just, O goddess ! I thy dictates hear. 
Hard as it is, my vengeance I suppress : 
Those who revere the gods, the gods will bless." 290 

He said, observant of the blue-ey'd maid ; 



BOOK I. ii 

Then in the sheath return'd the shining blade. 
The goddess swift to high Olympus flies, 
And joins the sacred senate of the skies. 

Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook, 295 

Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke : 
" O monster ! mix'd of insolence and fear, 
Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer ! 
When wert thou known in ambush'd fights to dare, 
Or nobly face the horrid front of war ? 300 

'Tis ours, the chance of fighting fields to try, 
Thine to look on, and bid the valiant die. 
So much 'tis safer through the camp to go, 
And rob a subject, than despoil a foe. 
Scourge of thy people, violent and base ! 305 

Sent in Jove's anger on a slavish race, 
Who, lost to sense of generous freedom past, 
Are tam'd to wrongs, or this had been thy last. 
Now by this sacred sceptre hear me swear, 
Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear, 310 

Which, sever'd from the trunk (as I from thee) 
On the bare mountains left its parent tree ; 
This sceptre, form'd by temper'd steel to prove 
An ensign of the delegates of Jove, 

From whom the pow'r of laws and justice springs : 315 
(Tremendous oath ! inviolate to kings) : 
By this I swear, when bleeding Greece again 
Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain. 
When, flush'd with slaughter, Hector comes to spread 
The purpled shore with mountains of the dead, 320 

Then shalt thou mourn th' affront thy ma.dness gave, 
Forced to deplore, when impotent to save : 



12 THE ILIAD. 

Then rage in bitterness of soul, to know 
This act has made the bravest Greek thy foe." 

He spoke ; and furious hurl'd against the ground 325 
His sceptre starr'd with golden studs around ; 
Then sternly silent sat. With like disdain, 
The raging king return 'd his frowns again. 

To calm their passion with the words of age, 
Slow from his seat arose the Pylian sage. 330 

Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skill'd ; 
Words sweet as honey from his lips distill'd : 
Two generations now had pass'd away, 
Wise by his rules, and happy by his sway ; 
Two ages o'er his native realm he reign'd, 335 

And now th' example of the third remain'd. 
All view'd w T ith awe the venerable man ; 
Who thus, with mild benevolence, began : 

" What shame, what woe is this to Greece ! what joy 
To Troy's proud monarch, and the friends of Troy ! 340 
That adverse gods commit to stern debate 
The best, the bravest of the Grecian state. 
Young as you are, this youthful heat restrain, 
Nor think your Nestor's years and wisdom vain. 
A godlike race of heroes once I knew, 345 

Such as no more these aged eyes shall view ! 
Lives there a chief to match Pirithous' fame, 
Dryas the bold, or Ceneus' deathless name ; 
Theseus, endued with more than mortal might, 
Or Polyphemus, like the gods in fight? 350 

With these of old to toils of battle bred, 
In early youth my hardy days I led ; 
Fir'd with the thirst which virtuous envy breeds, 



BOOK I. 13 

And smit with love of honourable deeds. 

Strongest of men, they pierced the mountain boar, 355 

Ranged the wild deserts red with monsters' gore, 

And from their hills the shaggy Centaurs tore. 

Yet these with soft persuasive arts I sway'd ; 

When Nestor spoke, they listen'd and obey'd. 

If in my youth, e'en these esteem'd me wise, 360 

Do you, young warriors, hear my age advise. 

Atrides, seize not on the beauteous slave ; 

That prize the Greeks by common suffrage gave : 

Nor thou, Achilles, treat our prince with pride ; 

Let kings be just, and sov'reign pow'r preside: 365 

Thee, the first honours of the war adorn, 

Like gods in strength, and of a goddess born ; 

Him, awful majesty exalts above 

The pow'rs of earth, and sceptred sons of Jove. 

Let both unite with well-consenting mind, 370 

So shall authority with strength be join'd. 

Leave me, O king ! to calm Achilles' rage ; 

Rule thou thyself, as more advanced in age. 

Forbid it, gods ! Achilles should be lost, 

The pride of Greece, and bulwark of our host." 375 

This said, he ceas'd : the king of men replies : 
" Thy years are awful, and thy words are wise. 
But that imperious, that unconquer'd soul, 
No laws can limit, no respect control : 
Before his pride must his superiors fall, 380 

His word the law, and he the lord of all? 
Him must our hosts, our chiefs, ourself obey? 
What king can bear a rival in his sway? 
Grant that the gods his matchless force have giv'n ; 



H THE ILIAD. 

Has foul reproach a privilege from heav'n?" 385 

Here on the monarch's speech Achilles broke, 
And furious, thus, and interrupting, spoke : 
" Tyrant, I well deserv'd thy galling chain, 
To live thy slave, and still to serve in vain, 
Should I submit to each unjust decree : 390 

Command thy vassals, but command not me. 
Seize on Briseis, whom the Grecians doom'd 
My prize of war, yet tamely see resum'd ; 
And seize secure ; no more Achilles draws 
His conqu'ring sword in any woman's cause. 395 

The gods command me to forgive the past ; 
But let this first invasion be the last : 
For know, thy blood, when next thou dar'st invade, 
Shall stream in vengeance on my reeking blade." 

At this they ceas'd ; the stern debate expir'd : 400 

The chiefs in sullen majesty retir'd. 

Achilles with Patroclus took his way, 
Where near his tents his hollow vessels lay. 
Meantime Atrides launch'd with numerous oars 
A well-rigg'd ship for Chrysa's sacred shores : 405 

High on the deck was fair Chrysei's placed, 
^And sage Ulysses with the conduct graced : 
Safe in her sides the hecatomb they stow'd, 
Then, swiftly sailing, cut the liquid road. 

The host to expiate next the king prepares, 410 

With pure lustrations and with solemn pray'rs. 
Wash'd by the briny wave, the pious train 
Are cleans'd; and cast th ? ablutions in the main. 
Along the shore whole hecatombs were laid, 
And bulls and goats to Phoebus' altars paid. 415 



BOOK I. 15 

The sable fumes in curling spires arise, 
And waft their grateful odours to the skies. 

The army thus in sacred rites engaged, 
Atrides still with deep resentment raged. 
To wait his will two sacred heralds stood, 420 

Talthybius and Eury bates the good. 
" Haste to the fierce Achilles' tent," (he cries,) 
" Thence bear Brisei's as our royal prize : 
Submit he must ; or, if they will not part, 
Ourself in arms shall tear her from his heart." 425 

Th' unwilling heralds act their lord's commands ; 
Pensive they walk along the barren sands : 
Arriv'd, the hero in his tent they find, 
With gloomy aspect, on his arm reclin'd. 
At awful distance long they silent stand, 430 

Loth to advance, or speak their hard command ; 
Decent confusion ! This the godlike man 
Perceiv'd, and thus with accent mild began : 

" With leave and honour enter our abodes, 
Ye sacred ministers of men and gods ! 435 

I know your message ; by constraint you came ; 
Not you, but your imperious lord, I blame. 
Patroclus, haste, the fair Briseis bring ; 
Conduct my captive to the haughty king. 
But witness, heralds, and proclaim my vow, 440 

Witness to gods above, and men below ! 
But first, and loudest, to your prince declare, 
That lawless tyrant whose commands you bear ; 
Unmov'd as death Achilles shall remain, 
Though prostrate Greece should bleed at every vein : 445 
' The raging chief in frantic passion lost, 



j6 THE ILIAD. 

Blind to himself, and useless to his host, 
Unskiird to judge the future by the past, 
In blood and slaughter shall repent at last." 

Patroclus now th' unwilling beauty brought ; 450 

She, in soft sorrows, and in pensive thought, 
Pass'd silent, as the heralds held her hand, 
And oft look'd back, slow-moving o'er the strand. 

Not so his loss the fierce Achilles bore ; 
But sad retiring to the sounding shore, 455 

O'er the wild margin of the deep he hung, 
That kindred deep from whence his. mother sprung ; 
There, bath'd in tears of anger and disdain, 
Thus loud lamented to the stormy main : 

a O parent goddess ! since in early bloom 460 

Thy son must fall, by too severe a doom ; 
Sure, to so short a race of glory born, 
Great Jove in justice should this span adorn. 
Honour and fame at least the Thunderer owed ; 
And ill he pays the promise of a god, 465 

If yon proud monarch thus thy son defies, 
Obscures my glories, and resumes my prize." 

Far in the deep recesses of the main, 
Where aged Ocean holds his watery reign, 
The goddess-mother heard. The waves divide ; 470 

And like a mist she rose above the tide; 
Beheld him mourning on the naked shores, 
And thus the sorrows of his soul explores : 
" Why grieves my son? thy anguish let me share, 
Reveal the cause, and trust a parent's care." 475 

He deeply sighing said : " To tell my woe, 
Is but to mention what too well you know. 



BOOK I. 17 

From Thebe, sacred to Apollo's name, 
(Eetion's realm,) our conqu'ring army came, 
With treasure loaded and triumphant spoils, 480 

Whose just division crown'd the soldier's toils ; 
But bright Chrysei's, heav'nly prize ! was led 
By vote selected to the general's bed. 
The priest of Phoebus sought by gifts to gain 
His beauteous daughter from the victor's chain ; 485 

The fleet he reach'd, and, lowly bending down, 
Held forth the sceptre and the laurel crown, 
Entreating all ; but chief implor'd for grace 
The brother-kings of Atreus' royal race : 
The gen'rous Greeks their joint consent declare, 490 

The priest to reverence, and release the fair. 
Not so Atrides : he, with wonted pride, 
The sire insulted, and his gifts denied : 
Th' insulted sire (his god's peculiar care) 
To Phoebus pray'd, and Phoebus heard the pray'r : 495 
A dreadful plague ensues ; th' avenging darts 
Incessant fly, and pierce the Grecian hearts. 
A prophet then, inspir'd by heaven, arose, 
And points the crime, and thence derives the woes : 
Myself the first th' assembled chiefs incline 500 

T' avert the vengeance of the pow'r divine ; 
Then, rising in his wrath, the monarch storm'd ; 
Incens'd he threaten'd, and his threats perform'd : 
The fair Chrysei's to her sire was sent, 
With offer'd gifts to make the god relent ; 505 

But now he seiz'd Briseis' heav'nly charms, 
And of my valour's prize defrauds my arms, 
Defrauds the votes of all the Grecian train ; 
c 



18 THE ILIAD. 

And service, faith, and justice, plead in vain. 

But, goddess ! thou thy suppliant son attend, 510 

To high Olympus' shining court ascend, 

Urge all the ties to former service ow'd, 

And sue for vengeance to the thundering god. 

Oft hast thou triumph' d in the glorious boast 

That thou stood'st forth, of all the ethereal host, 515 

When bold rebellion shook the realms above, 

Th' undaunted guard of cloud-compelling Jove. 

When the bright partner of his awful reign, 

The warlike maid, and monarch of the main, 

The traitor-gods, by mad ambition driv'n, 520 

Durst threat with chains th' omnipotence of heav'n. 

Then call'd by thee, the monster Titan came ; 

(Whom gods Briareus, men ^Egeon name ; ) 

Through wondering skies enormous stalk'd along ; 

Not he that shakes the solid earth so strong : 525 

With giant-pride at Jove's high throne he stands, 

And brandish'd round him all his hundred hands. 

Th' affrighted gods confess'd their awful lord, 

They dropp'd the fetters, trembled and ador'd. 

This, goddess, this to his rememb'rance call, 530 

Embrace his knees, at his tribunal fall ; 

Conjure him far to drive the Grecian train, 

To hurl them headlong to their fleet and main, 

To heap the shores with copious death and bring 

The Greeks to know the curse of such a king : 535 

Let Agamemnon lift his haughty head 

O'er all his wide dominion of the dead, 

And mourn in blood, that e'er he durst disgrace 

The boldest warrior of the Grecian race." 



BOOK I. 19 

" Unhappy son ! " (fair Thetis thus replies, 540 

While tears celestial trickle from her eyes,) 
" Why have I borne thee with a mother's throes, 
To fates averse, and nurs'd for future woes ? 
So short a space the light of heav'n to view ! 
So short a space ! and fill'd with sorrow too ! 545 

O might a parent's careful wish prevail, 
Far, far from Ilion should thy vessels sail, 
And thou, from camps remote, the danger shun, 
Which now, alas ! too nearly threats my son. 
Yet (what I can) to move thy suit I'll go 550 

To great Olympus crown'd with fleecy snow. 
Meantime, secure within thy ships from far, 
Behold the field, nor mingle in the war. 
The sire of gods, and all th' ethereal train, 
On the warm limits of the farthest main, 555 

Now mix with mortals, nor disdain to grace 
The feasts of Ethiopia's blameless race : 
Twelve days the powers indulge the genial rite, 
Returning with the twelfth revolving light. 
Then will I mount the brazen dome, and move 560 

The high tribunal of immortal Jove." 

The goddess spoke : the rolling waves unclose ; 
Then down the deep she plunged, from whence she rose, 
And left him sorrowing on the lonely coast 
In wild resentment for the fair he lost. 565 

In Chrysa's port now sage Ulysses rode ; 
Beneath the deck the destin'd victims stow'd : 
The sails they furl'd, they lash'd the mast aside, 
And dropp'd their anchors, and the pinnace tied. 
Next on the shore their hecatomb they land, 570 



20 THE ILIAD. 

Chrysei's last descending on the strand. 

Her, thus returning from the furrow'd main, 

Ulysses led to Phoebus' sacred fane ; 

Where at his solemn altar, as the maid 

He gave to Chryses, thus the hero said : 575 

" Hail, reverend priest ! to Phoebus' awful dome 
A suppliant I from great Atrides come : 
Unransom'd here receive the spotless fair ; 
Accept the hecatomb the Greeks prepare ; 
And may thy god, who scatters darts around, 580 

Aton'd by sacrifice, desist to wound." 

At this the sire embraced the maid again, 
So sadly lost, so lately sought in vain. 
Then near the altar of the darting king, 
Dispos'd in rank their hecatomb they bring : 585 

With water purify their hands, and take 
The sacred offering of the salted cake ; 
While thus with arms devoutly rais'd in air, 
And solemn voice, the priest directs his prayer : 

" God of the silver bow, thy ear incline, 590 

Whose power encircles Cilia the divine ; 
Whose sacred eye thy Tenedos surveys, 
And gilds fair Chrysa with distinguish 'd rays ! 
If, fir'd to vengeance at thy priest's request, 
Thy direful darts inflict the raging pest ; 595 

Once more attend ! avert the wasteful woe, 
And smile propitious, and unbend thy bow." 

So Chryses pray'd. Apollo heard his prayer : 
And now the Greeks their hecatomb prepare ; 
Between their horns the salted barley threw, 600 

And with their heads to heaven the victims slew : 



BOOK I. 21 

The limbs they sever from th' inclosing hide ; 

The thighs, selected to the gods, divide : 

On these, in double cauls involv'd with art, 

The choicest morsels lay from every part. 605 

The priest himself before his altar stands, 

And burns the offering with his holy hands, 

Pours the black wine, and sees the flames aspire ; 

The youths with instruments surround the fire : 

The thighs thus sacrificed, and entrails drest, 610 

Th' assistants part, transfix, and roast the rest : 

Then spread the tables, the repast prepare, 

Each takes his seat, and each receives his share. 

When now the rage of hunger was repress'd, 

With pure libations they conclude the feast ; 615 

The youths with wine the copious goblets crown'd, 

And, pleas'd, dispense the flowing bowls around. 

With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends, 

The Paeans lengthen 'd till the sun descends : 

The Greeks, restor'd, the grateful notes prolong : 620 

Apollo listens, and approves the song. 

'Twas night ; the chiefs beside their vessel lie, 
Till rosy morn had purpled o'er the sky : 
Then launch, and hoist the mast ; indulgent gales, 
Supplied by Phoebus, fill the swelling sails ; 625 

The milk-white canvas bellying as they blow, 
The parted ocean foams and roars below : 
Above the bounding billows swift they flew, 
Till now the Grecian camp appear'd in view. 
Far on the beach they haul their barks to land, 630 

(The crooked keel divides the yellow sand,) 
Then part, where stretch'd along the winding bay 



22 THE ILIAD. 

The ships and tents in mingled prospect lay. 

But, raging still, amidst his navy sat 
The stern Achilles, steadfast in his hate ; 635 

Nor mix'd in combat, nor in council join'd ; 
But wasting cares lay heavy on his mind : 
In his black thoughts revenge and slaughter roll, 
And scenes of blood rise dreadful in his soul. 

Twelve days were past, and now the dawning light 640 
The gods had summon'd to th' Olympian height : 
Jove, first ascending from the watery bowers, 
Leads the long order of ethereal powers. 
When like the morning mist, in early day, 
Rose from the flood the daughter of the sea ; 645 

And to the seats divine her flight address'd. 
There, far apart, and high above the rest, 
The Thunderer sat ; where old Olympus shrouds 
His hundred heads in heaven, and props the clouds. 
Suppliant the goddess stood : one hand she placed 650 
Beneath his beard, and one his knees embraced. 
" If e'er, O father of the gods ! " she said, 
" My words could please thee, or my actions aid ; 
Some marks of honour on thy son bestow, 
And pay in glory what in life you owe. 655 

Fame is at least by heavenly promise due 
To life so short and now dishonour'd too. 
Avenge this wrong, oh ever just and wise ! 
Let Greece be humbled, and the Trojans rise ; 
Till the proud king, and all th' Achaian race 660 

Shall heap with honours him they now disgrace." 

Thus Thetis spoke, but Jove in silence held 
The sacred counsels of his breast conceal'd. 



BOOK I. 23 

Not so repuls'd, the goddess closer press'd, 

Still grasp'd his knees, and urged the dear request. 665 

" O sire of gods and men ! thy suppliant hear, 

Refuse, or grant ; for what has Jove to fear ? 

Or, oh ! declare, of all the powers above, 

Is wretched Thetis least the care of Jove?" 

She said, and sighing thus the god replies, 670 

Who rolls the thunder o'er the vaulted skies : 

" What hast thou ask'd ? Ah why should Jove engage 
In foreign contests, and domestic rage, 
The gods' complaints, and Juno's fierce alarms, 
While I, too partial, aid the Trojan arms? 675 

Go, lest the haughty partner of my sway 
With jealous eyes thy close access survey ; 
But part in peace, secure thy prayer is sped : 
Witness the sacred honours of our head, 
The nod that ratifies the will divine, 680 

The faithful, fix'd, irrevocable sign ; 
This seals thy suit, and this fulfils thy vows — " 
He spoke, and awful bends his sable brows ; 
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod ; 
The stamp of fate, and sanction of the god : 685 

High heaven with trembling the dread signal took, 
And all Olympus to the centre shook. 

Swift to the seas profound the goddess flies, 
Jove to his starry mansion in the skies. 
The shining synod of th' immortals wait 690 

The coming god, and from their thrones of state 
Arising silent, rapt in holy fear, 
Before the majesty of heaven appear. 
Trembling they stand, while Jove assumes the throne, 



24 THE ILIAD. 

All, but the god's imperious queen alone : 695 

Late had she view'd the silver-footed dame, 

And all her passions kindled into flame. 

" Say, artful manager of heaven," (she cries,) 

Who now partakes the secrets of the skies ? 

Thy Juno knows not the decrees of fate, 700 

In vain the partner of imperial state. 

What fav'rite goddess then those cares divides, 

Which Jove in prudence from his consort hides?" 

To this the Thunderer : " Seek not thou to find 
The sacred counsels of almighty mind : 705 

Involv'd in darkness lies the great decree, 
Nor can the depths of fate be pierced by thee. 
What fits thy knowledge, thou the first shalt know : 
The first of gods above and men below : 
But thou, nor they, shall search the thoughts that roll 710 
Deep in the close recesses of my soul." 

Full on the sire, the goddess of the skies 
Roll'd the large orbs of her majestic eyes, 
And thus return'd : " Austere Saturnius, say, 
From whence this wrath, or who controls thy sway? 715 
Thy boundless will, for me, remains in force, 
And all thy counsels take the destin'd course. 
But 'tis for Greece I fear : for late was seen 
In close consult the silver-footed queen. 
Jove to his Thetis nothing could deny, 720 

Nor was the signal vain that shook the sky. 
What fatal favour has the goddess won, 
To grace her fierce inexorable son? 
Perhaps in Grecian blood to drench the plain, 
And glut his vengeance with my people slain." 725 



BOOK I. 25 

Then thus the god : " Oh restless fate of pride, 
That strives to learn what heaven resolves to hide ; 
Vain is the search, presumptuous and abhorr'd, 
Anxious to thee, and odious to thy lord. 
Let this suffice : th' immutable decree 730 

No force can shake : what is, that ought to be. 
Goddess submit, nor dare our will withstand, 
But dread the power of this avenging hand ; 
Th' united strength of all the gods above 
In vain resists th' omnipotence of Jove." 735 

The Thunderer spoke, nor durst the queen reply ; 
A reverend horror silenced all the sky. 
The feast disturb'd, with sorrow Vulcan saw 
His mother menaced, and the gods in awe ; 
Peace at his heart, and pleasure his design, 740 

Thus interpos'd the architect divine : 
" The wretched quarrels of the mortal state 
Are far unworthy, gods ! of your debate : 
Let men their days in senseless strife employ, 
We, in eternal peace, and constant joy. 745 

Thou, goddess-mother, with our sire comply, 
Nor break the sacred union of the sky : 
Lest, rous'd to rage, he shake the blest abodes, 
Launch the red lightning, and dethrone the gods. 
If you submit, the Thunderer stands appeas'd ; 750 

The gracious power is willing to be pleas'd." 

Thus Vulcan spoke ; and, rising with a bound, 
The double bowl with sparkling nectar crown'd, 
Which held to Juno in a cheerful way, 
"Goddess," (he cried,) " be patient and obey, 755 

Dear as you are, if Jove his arm extend, 



26 THE ILIAD. 

I can but grieve, unable to defend. 

What god so daring in your aid to move, 

Or lift his hand against the force of Jove ? 

Once in your cause I felt his matchless might, 760 

Hurl'd headlong downward from th' ethereal height ; 

Toss'd all the day in rapid circles round ; 

Nor, till the sun descended, touch'd the ground : 

Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost ; 

The Sinthians rais'd me on the Lemnian coast." 765 

He said, and to her hands the goblet heav'd, 
Which, with a smile, the white-arm'd queen receiv'd. 
Then to the rest he fill'd; and, in his turn, 
Each to his lips applied the nectar'd urn. 
Vulcan with awkward grace his office plies, 770 

And unextinguish'd laughter shakes the skies. 

Thus the blest gods the genial day prolong, 
In feasts ambrosial, and celestial song. 
Apollo tun'd the lyre ; the muses round 
With voice alternate aid the silver sound. 775 

Meantime the radiant sun, to mortal sight 
Descending swift, roll'd down the rapid light. 
Then to their starry domes the gods depart, 
The shining monuments of Vulcan's art : 
Jove on his couch reclin'd his awful head, 780 

And Juno slumber'd on the golden bed. 




y. Flax man and A. S chill. 



BOOK VI. 

THE EPISODES OF GLAUCUS AND DIOMED, AND 
OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. 



Now heaven forsakes the fight ; th' immortals yield 
To human force and human skill the field : 
Dark showers of javelins fly from foes to foes ; 
Now here, now there, the tide of combat flows ; 
While Troy's fam'd streams, that bound the deathful 
plain 5 

On either side, run purple to the main. 

Great Ajax first to conquest led the way, 
Broke the thick ranks, and turn'd the doubtful day. 
The Thracian Acamas his falchion found, 
And hew'd th' enormous giant to the ground ; to 

His thundering arm a deadly stroke impress'd 
Where the black horse-hair nodded o'er his crest : 

27 



28 THE ILIAD. 

Fix'd in his front the brazen weapon lies, 
And seals in endless shades his swimming eyes. 

Next Teuthras' son distain'd the sands with blood, 15 
Axylus, hospitable, rich, and good : 
In fair Arisba's walls (his native place) 
He held his seat ; a friend to human race. 
Fast by the road, his ever-open door 
Obliged the wealthy, and reliev'd the poor. 20 

To stern Tydides now he falls a prey, 
No friend to guard him in the dreadful day ! 
Breathless the good man fell, and by his side 
His faithful servant, old Calesius, died. 

By great Euryalus was Dresus slain, 25 

And next he laid Opheltius on the plain. 
Two twins were near, bold, beautiful, and young, 
From a fair Naiad and Bucolion sprung : 
(Laomedon's white flocks Bucolion fed, 
That monarch's first-born by a foreign bed ; 30 

In secret woods he won the Naiad's grace, 
And two fair infants crown'd his strong embrace :) 
Here dead they lay in all their youthful charms ; 
The ruthless victor stripp'd their shining arms. 

Astyalus by Polypoetes fell ; 35 

Ulysses' spear Pidytes sent to hell ; 
By Teucer's shaft brave Aretaon bled, 
And Nestor's son laid stern Ablerus dead; 
Great Agamemnon, leader of the brave, 
The mortal wound of rich Elatus gave, 40 

Who held in Pedasus his proud abode, 
And till'd the banks where silver Satnio flow'd. 
Melanthius by Eurypylus was slain ; 



BOOK VI. 29 

And Phylacus from Leitus flies in vain. 

Unbless'd Adrastus next at mercy lies 45 

Beneath the Spartan spear, a living prize. 
Scar'd with the din and tumult of the fight, 
His headlong steeds, precipitate in flight, 
Rush'd on a tamarisk's strong trunk, and broke 
The shatter'd chariot from the crooked yoke : 50 

Wide o'er the field, resistless as the wind, 
For Troy they fly, and leave their lord behind. 
Prone on his face he sinks beside the wheel; 
Atrides o'er him shakes his vengeful steel; 
The fallen chief in suppliant posture press'd 55 

The victor's knees, and thus his prayer address'd : 

" Oh, spare my youth, and for the life I owe 
Large gifts of price my father shall bestow : 
When fame shall tell, that, not in battle slain, 
Thy hollow ships his captive son detain, 60 

Rich heaps of brass shall in thy tent be told, 
And steel well temper'd, and persuasive gold." 

He said : compassion touch'd the hero's heart; 
He stood suspended with the lifted dart : 
As pity pleaded for his vanquish'd prize, 65 

Stern Agamemnon swift to vengeance flies, 
And furious thus : " Oh impotent of mind ! 
Shall these, shall these, Atrides' mercy find? 
Well hast thou known proud Troy's perfidious land, 
And well her natives merit at thy hand ! 70 

Not one, of all the race, nor sex, nor age, 
Shall save a Trojan from our boundless rage : 
Ilion shall perish whole, and bury all ; 
Her babes, her infants at the breast, shall fall. 



30 THE ILIAD. 

A dreadful lesson of exampled fate, 75 

To warn the nations, and to curb the great. 

The monarch spoke; the words, with warmth address' d, 
To rigid justice steel'd his brother's breast. 
Fierce from his knees the hapless chief he thrust; 
The monarch's javelin stretch'd him in the dust. 80 

Then, pressing with his foot his panting heart, 
Forth from the slain he tugg'd the reeking dart. 
Old Nestor saw, and rous'd the warriors' rage; 
"Thus, heroes! thus the vigorous combat wage! 
No son of Mars descend, for servile gains, 85 

To touch the booty, while a foe remains. 
Behold yon glittering host, your future spoil ! 
First gain the conquest, then reward the toil." 

And now had Greece eternal fame acquir'd, 
And frighted Troy within her walls retir'd; 90 

Had not sage Helenus her state redress'd, 
Taught by the gods that mov'd his sacred breast: 
Where Hector stood, with great ^Eneas join'd, 
The seer reveal'd the counsels of his mind: 

"Ye generous chiefs! on whom th' immortals lay 95 
The cares and glories of this doubtful day, 
On whom your aids, your country's hopes depend 
Wise to consult, and active to defend ! 
Here, at our gates, your brave efforts unite, 
Turn back the routed, and forbid the flight; 100 

Ere yet their wives' soft arms the cowards gain, 
The sport and insult of the hostile train. 
When your commands have hearten' d every band, 
Ourselves, here fixed, will make the dang'rous stand; 
Press' d as we are, and sore of former fight, 105 



BOOK VI. 



3i 



These straits demand our last remains of might. 

Meanwhile, thou, Hector, to the town retire, 

x\nd teach our mother what the gods require : 

Direct the queen to lead th' assembled train 

Of Troy's chief matrons to Minerva's fane ; no 

Unbar the sacred gates, and seek the power 

With offer'd vows, in Irion's topmost tower. 

The largest mantle her rich wardrobes hold, 

Most priz'd for art, and labour 'd o'er with gold, 

Before the goddess' honour'd knees be spread ; 115 

And twelve young heifers to her altars led. 

If so the power, aton'd by fervent prayer, 

Our wives, our infants, and our city spare, 

And far avert Tydides' wasteful ire, 

That mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire. 120 

Not thus Achilles taught our hosts to dread, 

Sprung though he was from more than mortal bed ; 

Not thus resistless rul'd the stream of fight, 

In rage unbounded, and unmatch'd in might." 

Hector obedient heard ; and, with a bound, 125 

Leap'd from his trembling chariot to the ground ; 
Through all his host, inspiring force, he flies, 
And bids the thunder of the battle rise. 
With rage recruited the bold Trojans glow, 
And turn the tide of conflict on the foe : 130 

Fierce in the front he shakes two dazzling spears ; 
All Greece recedes, and midst her triumph fears : 
Some god, they thought, who rul'd the fate of wars, 
Shot down avenging, from the vault of stars. 

Then thus, aloud : " Ye dauntless Dardans, hear ! 135 
And you whom distant nations send to war ) 



32 THE ILIAD. 

Be mindful of the strength your fathers bore ; 

Be still yourselves, and Hector asks no more. 

One hour demands- me in the Trojan wall, 

To bid our altars flame, and victims fall : 140 

Nor shall, I trust, the matrons' holy train, 

And reverend elders, seek the gods in vain." 

This said, with ample strides the hero pass'd ; 
The shield's large orb behind his shoulder cast. 
His neck o'ershading, to his ankle hung ; 145 

And as he march'd the brazen buckler rung. 

Now paus'd the battle, (godlike Hector gone,) 
When daring Glaucus and great Tydeus' son 
Between both armies met; the chiefs from far 
Observ'd each other, and had mark'd for war. 150 

Near as they drew, Tydides thus began : 

" What art thou, boldest of the race of man ? 
Our eyes, till now, that aspect ne'er beheld, 
Where fame is reap'd amid th' embattled field ; 
Yet far before the troops thou dar'st appear, 155 

And meet a lance the fiercest. heroes fear. 
Unhappy they, and born of luckless sires, 
Who tempt our fury when Minerva fires ! 
But if from heaven, celestial, thou descend, 
Know, with immortals we no more contend. 160 

Not long Lycurgus view'd the golden light, 
That daring man who mix'd with gods in fight ; 
Bacchus, and Bacchus' votaries, he drove 
With brandish'd steel from Nyssa's sacred grove ; 
Their consecrated spears lay scatter'd round, 165 

With curling vines and twisted ivy bound ; 
While Bacchus headlong sought the briny flood, 



BOOK VI. 33 

And Thetis' arms received the trembling god. 

Nor fail'd the crime th' immortals' wrath to move, 

(Th' immortals bless'd with endless ease above ;) 170 

Depriv'd of sight, by their avenging doom, 

Cheerless he breath'd, and wander'd in the gloom : 

Then sunk unpitied to the dire abodes, 

A wretch accurs'd, and hated by the gods ! 

I brave not heaven ; but if the fruits of earth 175 

Sustain thy life, and human be thy birth, 

Bold as thou art, too prodigal of breath, 

Approach, and enter the dark gates of death." 

"What, or from whence I am, or who my sire," 
(Replied the chief,) " can Tydeus' son inquire? 180 

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, 
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground : 
Another race the following spring supplies, 
They fall successive, and successive rise ; 
So generations in their course decay, 185 

So flourish these, when those are past away. 
But if thou still persist to search my birth, 
Then hear a tale that fills the spacious earth : 

" A city stands on Argos' utmost bound ; 
(Argos the fair, for warlike steeds renown'd ;) 190 

iEolian Sisyphus, with wisdom bless'd, 
In ancient time the happy walls possess'd, 
Then call'd Ephyre : Glaucus was his son ; 
Great Glaucus, father of Bellerophon, 
Who o'er the sons of men in beauty shin'd, 195 

Lov'd for that valour which preserves mankind. 
Then mighty Prcetus Argos' sceptre sway'd, 
Whose hard commands Bellerophon obey'd. 

D 



34 THE ILIAD. 

With direful jealousy the monarch raged, 

And the brave prince in numerous toils engaged. 200 

For him, Antea burn'd with lawless flame, 

And strove to tempt him from the paths of fame : 

In vain she tempted the relentless youth, 

Endued with wisdom, sacred fear, and truth. 

Fir'd at his scorn, the queen to Proetus fled, 205 

And begg'd revenge for her insulted bed : 

Incens'd he heard, resolving on his fate ; 

But hospitable laws restrain'd his hate : 

To Lycia the devoted youth he sent, 

With tablets^seaPd, that told his dire intent. 210 

Now, bless'd by every power who guards the good, 

The chief arriv'd at Xanthus' silver flood : 

There Lycia's monarch paid him honours due ; 

Nine days he feasted, and nine bulls he slew. 

But when the tenth bright morning orient glow'd, 215 

The faithful youth his monarch's mandate show'd : 

The fatal tablets, till that instant seal'd, 

The deathful secret to the king reveal 'd. 

First, dire Chimsera's conquest was enjoin'd ; 

A mingled monster, of no mortal kind ; 220 

Behind, a dragon's fiery tail was spread ; 

A goat's rough body bore a lion's head ; 

Her pitchy nostrils flaky flames expire ; 

Her gaping throat emits infernal fire. 

"This pest he slaughter'd ; (for he read the skies, 225 
And trusted heaven's informing prodigies ;) 
Then met in arms the Solymsean crew, 
(Fiercest of men,) and those the warrior slew. 
Next the bold Amazons' whole force defied ; 



BOOK VI. 35 

And conquer'd still, for heaven was on his side. 230 

u Nor ended here his toils : his Lycian foes, 
At his return, a treacherous ambush rose, 
With levell'd spears along the winding shore : 
There fell they breathless, and return'd no more. 

" At length the monarch with repentant grief 235 

Confess'd the gods, and god-descended chief; 
His daughter gave, the stranger to detain, 
With half the honours of his ample reign. 
The Lycians grant a chosen space of ground, 
With woods, with vineyards, and with harvests crown' d. 240 
There long the chief his happy lot possess'd, 
With two brave sons and one fair daughter bless'd : 
(Fair e'en in heavenly eyes ; her fruitful love 
Crown'd with Sarpedon's birth th' embrace of Jove.) 
But when at last, distracted in his mind, 245 

Forsook by heaven, forsaking human kind, 
Wide o'er th' Aleian field he chose to stray, 
A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way ! 
Woes heap'd on woes consum'd his wasted heart ; 
His beauteous daughter fell by Phoebe's dart • 250 

His eldest-born by raging Mars was slain, 
In combat on the Solymaean plain. 
Hippolochus surviv'd; from him I came, 
The honour'd author of my birth and name ; 
By his decree I sought the Trojan town, 255 

By his instructions learn to win renown ; 
To stand the first in worth as in command, 
To add new honours to my native land ; 
Before my eyes my mighty sires to place, 
And emulate the glories of our race." 26c 



36 THE ILIAD. 

He spoke, and transport fill'd Tydides' heart ; 
In earth the generous warrior fix'd his dart, 
Then friendly, thus, the Lycian prince address'd : 
" Welcome, my brave hereditary guest ! 
Thus ever let us meet with kind embrace, 265 

Nor stain the sacred friendship of our race. 
Know, chief, our grandsires have been guests of old, 
(Eneus the strong, Bellerophon the bold ; 
Our ancient seat his honour'd presence graced, 
Where twenty days in genial rites he pass'd. 270 

The parting heroes mutual presents left; 
A golden goblet was thy grandsire's gift ; 
CEneus a belt of matchless work bestow'd, 
That rich with Tyrian dye refulgent glow'd. 
(This from his pledge I learn'd, which, safely stor'd 275 
Among my treasures, still adorns my board : 
For Tydeus left me young when Thebe's wall 
Beheld the sons of Greece untimely fall.) 
Mindful of this, in friendship let us join ; 
If heaven our steps to foreign lands incline, 280 

My guest in Argos thou, and I in Lycia thine. 
Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield, 
In the full harvest of yon ample field ; 
Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore ; 
But thou and Diomed be foes no more. 285 

Now change we arms, and prove to either host 
We guard the friendship of the line we boast." 

Thus having said, the gallant chiefs alight, 
Their hands they join, their mutual faith they plight ; 
Brave Glaucus then each narrow thought resign'd ; 290 
(Jove warm'd his bosom and enlarged his mind;) 



BOOK VI. 37 

For Diomed's brass arms, of mean device, 

For which nine oxen paid, (a vulgar price,) 

He gave his own, of gold divinely wrought ■ 

A hundred beeves the shining purchase bought. 295 

Meantime the guardian of the Trojan state, 
Great Hector, enter'd at the Scsean gate. 
Beneath the beech-trees' consecrated shades, 
The Trojan matrons and the Trojan maids 
Around him flock'd, all press'd with pious care 300 

For husbands, brothers, sons, engaged in war. 
He bids the train in long procession go, 
And seek the gods, t' avert th' impending woe. 
And now to Priam's stately courts he came, 
Rais'd on arch'd columns of stupendous frame ; 305 

O'er these a range of marble structure runs ; 
The rich pavilions of his fifty sons, 
In fifty chambers lodged : and rooms of state 
Oppos'd to those, where Priam's daughters sate : 
Twelve domes for them and their lov'd spouses shone, 310 
Of equal beauty, and of polish'd stone. 
Hither great Hector pass'd, nor pass'd unseen 
Of royal Hecuba, his mother queen. 
(With her Laodice, whose beauteous face 
Surpass'd the nymphs of Troy's illustrious race.) 315 

Long in a strict embrace she held her son, 
And press'd his hand, and tender thus begun : 

" O Hector ! say, what great occasion calls 
My son from fight, when Greece surrounds our walls? 
Com'st thou to supplicate th' almighty power 320 

With lifted hands from Ilion's lofty tower? 
Stay, till I bring the cup with Bacchus crown'd, 



38 THE ILIAD. 

In Jove's high name, to sprinkle on the ground, 

x\nd pay due vows to all the gods around. 

Then with a plenteous draught refresh thy soul, 325 

And draw new spirits from the generous bowl ; 

Spent as thou art with long laborious fight, 

The brave defender of thy country's right." 

" Far hence be Bacchus' gifts ; " (the chief rejoin'd ;) 
" Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind, 330 

Unnerves the limbs and dulls the noble mind. 
Let chiefs abstain, and spare the sacred juice 
To sprinkle to the gods, its better use. 
By me that holy office were profan'd ; 
111 fits it me, with human gore distain'd, 335 

To the pure skies these horrid hands to raise, 
Or offer heaven's great sire polluted praise. 
You, with your matrons, go, a spotless train ! 
And burn rich odours in Minerva's fane. 
The largest mantle your full wardrobes hold, 340 

Most priz'd for art, and labour'd o'er with gold, 
Before the goddess' honour'd knees be spread, 
And twelve young heifers to her altar led. 
So may the power, aton'd by fervent prayer, 
Our wives, our infants, and our city spare, 345 

And far avert Tydides' wasteful ire, 
Who mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire. 
Be this, O mother, your religious care ; 
I go to rouse soft Paris to the war ; 

If yet, not lost to all the sense of shame, 350 

The recreant warrior hear the voice of fame. 
Oh would kind earth the hateful wretch embrace, 
That pest of Troy, that ruin of our race ! 



BOOK VI. 



39 



Deep to the dark abyss might he descend, 

Troy yet should nourish, and my sorrows end." 355 

This heard, she gave command ; and summon'd came 
Each noble matron, and illustrious dame. 
The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went, 
Where treasur'd odours breath'd a costly scent. 
There lay the vestures of no vulgar art, 360 

Sidonian maids embroider'd every part, 
Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore, 
With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore. 
Here as the queen revolv'd with careful eyes 
The various textures and the various dyes, 365 

She chose a veil that shone superior far, 
And glow'd refulgent as the morning star. 
Herself with this the long procession leads ; 
The train majestically slow proceeds. 
Soon as to Ilion's topmost tower they come, 370 

And awful reach the high Palladian dome, 
Antenor's consort, fair Theano, waits 
As Pallas' priestess, and unbars the gates. 
With hands uplifted and imploring eyes, 
They fill the dome with supplicating cries. 375 

The priestess then the shining veil displays, 
Placed on Minerva's knees and thus she prays : 

" Oh, awful goddess ! ever-dreadful maid, 
Troy's strong defence, unconquer'd Pallas, aid ! 
Break thou Tydides' spear, and let him fall 380 

Prone on the dust before the Trojan wall. 
So twelve young heifers, guiltless of the yoke. 
Shall fill thy temple with a grateful smoke. 
But thou, aton'd by penitence and prayer, 



40 THE ILIAD. 

Ourselves, our infants, and our city spare ! " 385 

So pray'd the priestess in her holy fane ; 

So vow'd the matrons, but they vow'd in vain. 

While these appear before the power with prayers, 
Hector to Paris' lofty dome repairs. 
Himself the mansion rais'd, from every part 390 

Assembling architects of matchless art. 
Near Priam's court and Hector's palace stands 
The pompous structure, and the town commands. 
A spear the hero bore of wondrous strength, 
Of full ten cubits was the lance's length ; 395 

The steely point with golden ringlets join'd, 
Before him brandish'd at each motion shin'd. 
Thus entering, in the glittering rooms he found 
His brother-chief, whose useless arms lay round, 
His eyes delighting with their splendid show 400 

Bright'ning the shield, and polishing the bow. 
Beside him Helen with her virgins stands, 
Guides their rich labours, and instructs their hands. 

Him thus inactive, with an ardent look 
The prince beheld, and high-resenting spoke : 405 

"Thy hate to Troy is this the time to shew? 
(Oh wretch ill-fated, and thy country's foe !) 
Paris and Greece against us both conspire, 
Thy close resentment, and their vengeful ire. 
For thee great Ilion's guardian heroes fall, 410 

Till heaps of dead alone defend her wall ; 
For thee the soldier bleeds, the matron mourns, 
And wasteful war in all its fury burns. 
Ungrateful man ! deserves not this thy care, 
Our troops to hearten, and our toils to share? 415 



BOOK VI. 41 

Rise, or behold the conquering flames ascend, 
And all the Phrygian glories at an end." 

" Brother, 'tis just," (replied the beauteous youth,) 
"Thy free remonstrance proves thy worth and truth : 
Yet charge my absence less, oh generous chief! 420 

On hate to Troy, than conscious shame and grief. 
Here, hid from human eyes, thy brother sat, 
And mourn'd in secret his and Ilion's fate. 
'Tis now enough : now glory spreads her charms, 
And beauteous Helen calls her chief to arms. 425 

Conquest to-day my happier sword may bless, 
'Tis man's to fight, but heaven's to give success. 
But while I arm, contain thy ardent mind ; 
Or go, and Paris shall not lag behind." 

He said, nor answer'd Priam's warlike son ; 430 

When Helen thus with lowly grace begun : 

" Oh generous brother ! if the guilty dame 
That caus'd these woes deserves a sister's name ! 
Would heaven, ere all these dreadful deeds were done, 
The day that show'd me to the golden sun 435 

Had seen my death ! Why did not whirlwinds bear 
The fatal infant to the fowls of air ? 
Why sunk I not beneath the whelming tide, 
And midst the roaring of the waters died ? 
Heaven fill'd up all my ills, and I accurs'd 440 

Bore all, and Paris of those ills the worst. 
Helen at least a braver spouse might claim, 
Warm'd with some virtue, some regard of fame ! 
Now, tired with toils, thy fainting limbs recline, 
With toils* sustain'd for Paris' sake and mine : 445 

The gods have link'd our miserable doom, 



42 THE ILIAD. 

Our present woe and infamy to come ; 

Wide shall it spread, and last through ages long, 

Example sad ! and theme of future song." 

The chief replied : " This time forbids to rest : 450 

The Trojan bands, by hostile fury press'd, 
Demand their Hector, and his arm require ; 
The combat urges, and my soul's on fire. 
Urge thou thy knight to march where glory calls, 
And timely join me, ere I leave the walls. 455 

Ere yet I mingle in the direful fray, 
My wife, my infant, claim a moment's stay : 
This day (perhaps the last that sees me here) 
Demands a parting word, a tender tear : 
This day some god, who hates our Trojan land, 460 

May vanquish Hector by a Grecian hand." 

He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart 
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearei part ; 
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain : 
She, with one maid of all her menial train, 465 

Had thence retir'd ; and, with her second joy, 
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy, 
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height, 
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight ; 
There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore, 470 

Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore. 

But he who- found not whom his soul desir'd, 
Whose virtue charm'd him as her beauty fir'd, 
Stood in the gates, and ask'd what way she bent 475 

Her parting steps? If to the fane she went, 
Where late the mourning matrons made resort ; 
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court? 



BOOK VI. 43 

" Not to the court/' (replied th' attendant train,) 

" Nor, mix'd with matrons, to Minerva's fane : 

To Ilion's steepy tower she bent her way, 480 

To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day. 

Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword : 

She heard, and trembled for her distant lord ; 

Distracted with surprise, she seem'd to fly, 

Fear on her cheek, and sorrow in her eye. 485 

The nurse attended, with her infant boy, 

The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy." 

Hector, this heard, return'd without delay; 
Swift through the town he trod his former way, 
Through streets of palaces and walks of state ; 490 

And met the mourner at the Scsean gate. 
With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair, 
His blameless wife, Eetion's wealthy heir : 
(Cilician Thebe great Eetion sway'd, 
And Hippoplacus' wide-extended shade :) 495 

The nurse stood near, in whose embraces press'd, 
His only hope hung smiling at her breast, 
Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn, 
Fair as the new-born star that gilds the morn. 
To this lov'd infant Hector gave the name 500 

Scamandrius, from Scamander's honour'd stream : 
Astyanax the Trojans call'd the boy, 
From his great father, the defence of Troy. 
Silent the warrior smil'd, and pleas'd, resign'd 
To tender passions all his mighty mind : 505 

His beauteous princess cast a mournful look, 
Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke ; 
Her bosom labour'd with a boding sigh, 



44 THE ILIAD. 

And the big tear stood trembling in her eye. 

" Too daring prince ! ah whither dost thou run ? 510 
Ah too forgetful of thy wife and son ! 
And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be, 
A widow I, a helpless orphan he ! 
For sure such courage, length of life denies, 
And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice. 515 

Greece in her single heroes strove in vain ; 
Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain ! 
Oh grant me, gods ! ere Hector meets his doom, 
All I can ask of heaven, an early tomb ! 
So shall my days in one sad tenor run, 520 

And end with sorrows as they first begun. 
No parent now remains, my griefs to share, 
No father's aid, no mother's tender care. 
The fierce Achilles wrapt our walls in fire, 
Laid Thebe waste, and slew my warlike sire ! 525 

His fate compassion in the victor bred ; 
Stern as he was, he yet rever'd the dead, 
His radiant arms preserv'd from hostile spoil, 
And laid him decent on the funeral pile ; 
Then rais'd a mountain where his bones were burn'd ; 530 
The mountain nymphs the rural tomb adorn' d ; 
Jove's sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow 
A barren shade, and in his honour grow. 

" By the same arm my seven brave brothers fell ; 
In one sad day beheld the gates of hell ; 535 

While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed, 
Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled ! 
My mother liv'd to bear the victor's bands, 
The queen of Hippoplacia's sylvan lands : 



BOOK VI. 45 

Redeem 'd too late, she scarce beheld again 540 

Her pleasing empire and her native plain, 
When, ah ! oppress 'd by life-consuming woe, 
She fell a victim to Diana's bow. 

" Yet while my Hector still survives, I see 
My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee. 545 

Alas ! my parents, brothers, kindred, all 
Once more will perish if my Hector fall. 
Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share ; 
Oh prove a husband's and a father's care ! 
That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy 550 

Where yon wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy : 
Thou, from this tower defend th' important post ; 
There Agamemnon points his dreadful host, 
That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain, 
And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train. 555 

Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have given, 
Or led by hopes, or dictated from heaven. 
Let others in the field their arms employ, 
But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy." 

The chief replied : " That post shall be my care, 560 
Nor that alone, but all the works of war. 
How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd, 
And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the 

ground, 
Attaint the lustre of my former name, 
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame? 565 

My early youth was bred to martial pains, 
My soul impels me to th' embattled plains : 
Let me be foremost to defend the throne, 
And guard my father's glories, and my own. 



46 THE ILIAD. 

Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates ; 570 

(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates !) 
The day when thou, imperial Troy ! must bend, 
And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. 
And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, 
My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, 575 

Not Priam's hoary hairs defil'd with gore, 
Not all my brothers gasping on the shore ; 
As thine, Andromache ! thy griefs I dread ; 
I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led ! 
In Argive looms our battles to design, 580 

And woes of which so large a part was thine ! 
To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring 
The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring. 
There, while you groan beneath the load of life, 
They cry, Behold the mighty Hector's wife ! 585 

Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see, 
Embitters all thy woes by naming me. 
The thoughts of glory past, and present shame, 
A thousand griefs, shall waken at the name ! 
May I lie cold before that dreadful day, 590 

Press'd with a load of monumental clay ! 
Thy Hector, wrapp'd in everlasting sleep, 
Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep." 
Thus having spoke, th' illustrious chief of Troy 
Stretch'd his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy. 595 

The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast, 
Scar'd at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest. 
With secret pleasure each fond parent smil'd, 
And Hector hasted to relieve his child ; 
The glittering terrors from his brows unbound, 600 



i ,'■;•?•:•/ 



si 




:xi 



U i 









di 



Friedrich Pre Her. 



Iliad — Book VI., 488-615. 



BOOK VI. 47 

And placed the beaming helmet on the ground. 
Then kiss'd the child, and, lifting high in air, 
Thus to the gods preferr'd a father's prayer : 

" O thou ! whose glory fills th' ethereal throne, 
And all ye deathless powers ! protect my son ! 605 

Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown. 
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown, 
x\gainst his country's foes the war to wage, 
And rise the Hector of the future age ! 
So when, triumphant from successful toils, 610 

Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils, 
Whole hosts may hail him with deserv'd acclaim, 
And say, This chief transcends his father's fame : 
While pleas'd, amidst the general shouts of Troy, 
His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy." 615 

He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms 
Restor'd the pleasing burden to her arms : 
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid, 
Hush'd to repose, and with a smile survey'd. 
The troubled pleasure soon chastis'd by fear, 620 

She mingled with the smile a tender tear. 
The soften'd chief with kind compassion view'd, 
And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued : 

" Andromache ! my soul's far better part, 
Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart ? 625 

No hostile hand can antedate my doom, 
Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb. 
Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth, 
And such the hard condition of our birth. 
No force can then resist, no flight can save ; 630 

All sink alike, the fearful and the brave. 



48 THE ILIAD. 

No more — but hasten to thy tasks at home, 

There guide the spindle, and direct the loom : 

Me glory summons to the martial scene, 

The field of combat is the sphere for men. 635 

Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim, 

The first in danger as the first in fame." 

Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes 
His towery helmet, black with shading plumes. 
His princess parts with a prophetic sigh, 640 

Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye, 
That stream' d at every look : then, moving slow, 
Sought her own palace, and indulged her woe. 
There, while her tears deplored the godlike man, 
Through all her train the soft infection ran ; 645 

The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed, 
And mourn the living Hector as the dead. 

But now, no longer deaf to honour's call, 
Forth issues Paris from the palace wall. 
In brazen arms that cast a gleamy ray, 650 

Swift through the town the warrior bends his way. 
The wanton courser thus, with reins unbound, 
Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground ; 
Pamper'd and proud he seeks the wonted tides, 
And laves, in height of blood, his shining sides : 655 

His head now freed he tosses to the skies ; 
His mane dishevell'd o'er his shoulders flies ; 
He snuffs the females in the distant. plain, 
And springs, exulting, to his fields again. 
With equal triumph, sprightly, bold and gay, 660 

In arms refulgent as the god of day, 
The son of Priam, glorying in his might, 



BOOK VI. 49 

Rush'd forth with Hector to the fields of fight. 

And now the warriors passing on the way, 
The graceful Paris first excused his stay. 665 

To whom the noble Hector thus replied : 
" O chief ! in blood, and now in arms, allied ! 
Thy power in war with justice none contest ; 
Known is thy courage, and thy strength confess'd. 
What pity, sloth should seize a soul so brave, 670 

Or godlike Paris live a woman's slave ! 
My heart weeps blood at what the Trojans say, 
And hopes thy deeds shall wipe the stain away. 
Haste then, in all their glorious labours share ; 
For much they suffer, for thy sake, in war. 675 

These ills shall cease, whene'er by Jove's decree 
We crown the bowl to Heaven and Liberty : 
While the proud foe his frustrate triumphs mourns, 
And Greece indignant through her seas returns." 




y. Flaxman and A. Schill. 



BOOK XXII. 



THE DEATH OF HECTOR. 



Thus to their bulwarks, smit with panic fear, 
The herded Ilians rush like driven deer ; 
There safe, they wipe the briny drops away, 
And drown in bowls the labours of the day. 
Close to the walls, advancing o'er the fields, 
Beneath one roof of well-compacted shields, 
March, bending on, the Greeks' embodied powers, 
Far-stretching in the shade of Trojan towers. 
Great Hector singly stay'd ; chain'd down by fate, 
There fix'd he stood before the Scaean gate ; 
Still his bold arms determin'd to employ, 
The guardian still of long-defended Troy. 

Apollo now to tir'd Achilles turns, 
(The power confess'd in all his glory burns,) 

5° 



BOOK XXII. 51 

"And what" (he cries) " has Peleus' son in view, 15 

With mortal speed a godhead to pursue ? 
For not to thee to know the gods is giv'n, 
Unskill'd to trace the latent marks of heav'n. 
What boots thee now, that Troy forsook the plain? 
Vain thy past labour, and thy present vain : 20 

Safe in their walls are now her troops bestow'd, 
While here thy frantic rage attacks a god." 

The chief incens'd : " Too partial god of day ! 
To check my conquests in the middle way : 
How few in Ilion else had refuge found ! 25 

What gasping numbers now had bit the ground ! 
Thou robb'st me of a glory justly mine, 
Powerful of godhead, and of fraud divine : 
Mean fame, alas ! for one of heavenly strain, 
To cheat a mortal who repines in vain." 30 

Then to the city, terrible and strong, 
With high and haughty steps he tower'd along : 
So the proud courser, victor of the prize, 
To the near goal with double ardour flies. 
Him, as he blazing shot across the field, 35 

The careful eyes of Priam first beheld. 
Not half so dreadful rises to the sight, 
Through the thick gloom of some tempestuous night, 
Orion's dog, (the year when autumn weighs,) 
And o'er the feebler stars exerts his rays ; 40 

Terrific glory ! for his burning breath 
Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death. 
So flam'd his fiery mail. Then wept the sage : 
He strikes his rev'rend head, now white with age ; 
He lifts his wither'd arms ; obtests the skies ; 45 



52 THE ILIAD. 

He calls his much-lov'd son with feeble cries : 

The son, resolv'd Achilles' force to dare, 

Full at the Scaean gate expects the war : 

While the sad father on the rampart stands, 

And thus adjures him with extended hands : 50 

" Ah stay not, stay not ! guardless and alone : 
Hector, my lov'd, my dearest, bravest son ! 
Methinks already I behold thee slain, 
And stretch'd beneath that fury of the plain. 
Implacable Achilles ! might'st thou be 55 

To all the gods no dearer than to me ! 
Thee vultures wild should scatter round the shore, 
And bloody dogs grow fiercer from thy gore ! 
How many valiant sons I late enjoy'd, 
Valiant in vain ! by thy curs'd arm destroy'd : 60 

Or, worse than slaughter'd, sold in distant isles 
To shameful bondage and unworthy toils. 
Two, while I speak, my eyes in vain explore, 
Two from one mother sprung, my Polydore 
And loved Lycaon ; now perhaps no more ! 65 

Oh ! if in yonder hostile camp they live, 
What heaps of gold, what treasures would I give ! 
(Their grandsire's wealth, by right of birth their own, 
Consign'd his daughter with Lelegia's throne :) 
But if (which heaven forbid) already lost, 70 

All pale they wander on the Stygian coast, 
What sorrows then must their sad mother know, 
What anguish I ! unutterable woe ! 
Yet less that anguish, less to her, to me, 
Less to all Troy, if not deprived of thee. 75 

Yet shun Achilles ! enter yet the wall ; 



BOOK XXII. 53 

And spare thyself, thy father, spare us all ! 

Save thy dear life : or if a soul so brave 

Neglect that thought, thy dearer glory save. 

Pity, while yet I live, these silver hairs ; 2o 

While yet thy father feels the woes he bears, 

Yet curs'd with sense ! a wretch, whom in his rage 

(All trembling on the verge of helpless age) 

Great Jove has placed, sad spectacle of pain ! 

The bitter dregs of fortune's cup to drain : 85 

To fill with scenes of death his closing eyes, 

And number all his days by miseries ! 

My heroes slain, my bridal bed o'erturned, 

My daughters ravish'd, and my city burn'd, 

My bleeding infants dash'd against the floor ; go 

These I have yet to see, perhaps yet more ! 

Perhaps ev'n I, reserv'd by angry fate 

The last sad relic of my ruined state, 

(Dire pomp of sovereign wretchedness !) must fall 

And stain the pavement of my regal hall ; 95 

Where famish'd dogs, late guardians of my door, 

Shall lick their mangled master's spatter'd gore. 

Yet for my sons I thank ye, gods ! 'twas well : 

Well have they perish'd, for in fight they fell. 

Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best, 100 

Struck through with wounds, all honest on the breast. 

But when the fates, in fulness of their rage, 

Spurn the hoar head of unresisting age, 

In dust the reverend lineaments deform, 

And pour to dogs the life-blood scarcely warm ; 105 

This, this is misery ! the last, the worst, 

That man can feel : man, fated to be curs'/ 



54 THE ILIAD. 

He said, and acting what no words could say, 
Rent from his head the silver locks away. 
With him the mournful mother bears a part : no 

Yet all their sorrows turn not Hector's heart : 
The zone unbraced, her bosom she display'd ; 
And thus, fast-falling the salt tears, she said : 

" Have mercy on me, O my son ! revere 
The words of age ; attend a parent's prayer ! 115 

If ever thee in these fond arms I press'd, 
Or still'd thy infant clamours at this breast ; 
Ah ! do not thus our helpless years forego, 
But, by our walls secured, repel the foe. 
Against his rage if singly thou proceed, 120 

Should'st thou, (but heav'n avert it!) should'st thou 

bleed, 
Nor must thy corse lie honour'd on the bier, 
Nor spouse, nor mother, grace thee with a tear ; 
Far from our pious rites, those dear remains 
Must feast the vultures on the naked plains." 125 

So they, while down their cheeks the torrents roll : 
But flx'd remains the purpose of his soul ; 
Resolv'd he stands, and with a fiery glance 
Expects the hero's terrible advance. 
So, roll'd up in his den, the swelling snake 130 

Beholds the traveller approach the brake ; 
When, fed with noxious herbs, his turgid veins 
Have gather'd half the poisons of the plains ; 
He burns, he stiffens with collected ire, 
And his red eyeballs glare with living fire. 135 

Beneath a turret, on his shield reclin'd, 
He stood, and question'd thus his mighty mind : 



BOOK XXII. 55 

" Where lies my way ? To enter in the wall ? 
Honour and shame th' ungenerous thought recall : 
Shall proud Polydamas before the gate 140 

Proclaim, his counsels are obey'd too late, 
Which timely follow' d but the former night, 
What numbers had been sav'd by Hector's flight? 
That wise advice rejected with disdain, 
I feel my folly in my people slain. 145 

Methinks my suffering country's voice I hear, 
But most, her worthless sons insult my ear, 
On my rash courage charge the chance of war, 
And blame those virtues which they cannot share. 
No — If I e'er return, return I must 150 

Glorious, my country's terror laid in dust : 
Or if I perish, let her see me fall 
In field at least, and fighting for her wall. 
And yet suppose these measures I forego, 
Approach unarm 'd, and parley with the foe, 155 

The warrior-shield, the helm, and lance lay down, 
And treat on terms of peace to save the town : 
The wife withheld, the treasure ill-detain'd, 
(Cause of the war, and grievance of the land,) 
With honourable justice to restore ; 160 

And add half Ilion's yet remaining store, 
Which Troy shall, sworn, produce ; that injur'd Greece 
May share our wealth, and leave our walls in peace. 
But why this thought ? unarm' d if I should go, 
What hope of mercy from this vengeful foe, 165 

But woman-like to fall, and fall without a blow? 
We greet not here, as man conversing man, 
Met at an oak, or journeying o'er a plain ; 



56 THE ILIAD. 

No season now for calm, familiar talk, 

Like youths and maidens in an ev'ning walk : 170 

War is our business, but to whom is given 

To die or triumph, that determine heaven ! " 

Thus pondering, like a god the Greek drew nigh : 
His dreadful plumage nodded from on high ; 
The Pelian javelin, in his better hand, 175 

Shot trembling rays that glitter'd o'er the land ; 
And on his breast the beamy splendours shone 
Like Jove's own lightning, or the rising sun. 
As Hector sees, unusual terrors rise, 
Struck by some god, he fears, recedes, and flies : 180 

He leaves the gates, he leaves the walls behind ; 
Achilles follows like the winged wind. 
Thus at the panting dove the falcon flies ; 
(The swiftest racer of the liquid skies ;) 
Just when he holds, or thinks he holds, his prey, 185 

Obliquely wheeling through th' aerial way, 
With open beak and shrilling cries he springs 
And aims his claws, and shoots upon his wings : 
No less fore-right the rapid chase they held, 
One urged by fury, one by fear impell'd ; 190 

Now circling round the walls their course maintain, 
Where the high watch-tower overlooks the plain ; 
Now where the fig-trees spread their umbrage broad, 
(A wider compass,) smoke along the road. 
Next by Scamander's double source they bound, 195 

Where two fam'd fountains burst the parted ground : 
This hot through scorching clefts is seen to rise, 
With exhalations steaming to the skies ; 
That the green banks in summer's heat o'erflows, 



BOOK XXII. 57 

Like crystal clear, and cold as winter snows. 200 

Each gushing fount a marble cistern fills, 

Whose polish' d bed receives the falling rills; 

Where Trojan dames (ere yet alarm' d by Greece) 

Wash'd their fair garments in the days of peace. 

By these they pass'd, one chasing, one in flight; 205 

(The mighty fled, pursued by stronger might;) 

Swift was the course; no vulgar prize they play, 

No vulgar victim must reward the day; 

(Such as in races crown the speedy strife;) 

The prize contended was great Hector's life. 210 

As when some hero's funerals are decreed, 
In grateful honour of the mighty dead; 
Where high rewards the vigorous youth inflame, 
(Some golden tripod, or some lovely dame,) 
The panting coursers swiftly turn the goal, 215 

And with them turns the rais'd spectator's soul: 
Thus three times round the Trojan wall they fly; 
The gazing gods lean forward from the sky : 
To whom, while eager on the chase they look, 
The sire of mortals and immortals spoke : 220 

"Unworthy sight! the man, belov'd of heaven, 
Behold, inglorious round yon city driven ! 
My heart partakes the generous Hector's pain; 
Hector, whose zeal whole hecatombs has slain. 
Whose grateful fumes the gods receiv'd with joy, 225 
From Ida's summits, and the towers of Troy: 
Now see him flying! to his fears resign'd, 
And Fate, and fierce Achilles, close behind. 
Consult, ye powers ('tis worthy your debate), 
Whether to snatch him from impending fate, 230 



58 THE ILIAD. 

Or let him bear, by stern Pelides slain, 
(Good as he is,) the lot impos'd on man?" 

Then Pallas thus : " Shall he whose vengeance forms 
The forky bolt, and blackens heaven with storms, 
Shall he prolong one Trojan's forfeit breath, 235 

A man, a mortal, pre-ordain'd to death? 
And will no murmurs fill the courts above? 
No gods indignant blame their partial Jove? " 
"Go then," (return'd the sire,) "without delay; 
Exert thy will : I give the fates their way." 240 

Swift at the mandate pleas'd Tritonia flies, 
And stoops impetuous from the cleaving skies. 

As through the forest, o'er the vale and lawn, 
The well-breath'd beagle drives the flying fawn ; 
In vain he tries the covert of the brakes, 245 

Or deep beneath the trembling thicket shakes : 
Sure of the vapour in the tainted dews, 
The certain hound his various maze pursues : 
Thus step by step, where'er the Trojan wheel'd, 
There swift Achilles compass'd round the field. 250 

Oft as to reach the Dardan gates he bends, 
And hopes th' assistance of his pitying friends, 
(Whose showering arrows, as he cours'd below, 
From the high turrets might oppress the foe,) 
So oft Achilles turns him to the plain : 255 

He eyes the city, but he eyes in vain. 
As men in slumber seem with speedy pace, 
One to pursue, and one to lead the chase, 
Their sinking limbs the fancied course forsake. 
Nor this can fly, nor that can overtake : 260 

No less the lab'ring heroes pant and strain ; 



BOOK XXII. 59 

While that but flies, and this pursues, in vain. 

What god, O Muse ! assisted Hector's force, 
With Fate itself so long to. hold the course? 
Phoebus it was : who, in his latest hour, 265 

Endued his knees with strength, his nerves with power. 
And great Achilles, lest some Greek's advance 
Should snatch the glory from his lifted lance, 
Sign'd to the troops, to yield his foe the way, 
And leave untouch'd the honours of the day. 270 

Jove lifts the golden balances, that show 
The fates of mortal men, and things below : 
Here each contending hero's lot he tries, 
And weighs, with equal hand, their destinies. 
Low sinks the scale surcharged with Hector's fate ; 275 
Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight. 

Then Phoebus left him. Fierce Minerva flies 
To stern Pelides, and, triumphing, cries : 
" Oh lov'd of Jove ! this day our labours cease, 
And conquest blazes with full beams on Greece. 280 

Great Hector falls ; that Hector fam'd so far, 
Drunk with renown, insatiable of war, 
Falls by thy hand, and mine ! nor force nor flight 
Shall more avail him, nor his god of light. 
See, where in vain he supplicates above, 285 

Roll'd at the feet of unrelenting Jove ! 
Rest here : myself will lead the Trojan on, 
And urge to meet the fate he cannot shun." 

Her voice divine the chief with joyful mind 
Obey'd, and rested, on his lance reclined. 290 

While like Dei'phobus- the martial dame, 
(Her face, her gesture, and her arms, the same,) 



60 THE ILIAD. 

In show an aid, by hapless Hector's side 
Appr,oach'd, and greets him thus with voice belied: 

" Too long, O Hector ! have I born the sight 295 

Of this distress, and sorrow'd in thy flight: 
It fits us now a noble stand to make, 
And here, as brothers, equal fates partake." 

Then he : " O prince ! allied in blood and fame, 
Dearer than all that own a brother's name; 300 

Of all that Hecuba to Priam bore, 

Long tried, long lov'd; much lov'd, but honour'd more ! 
Since you of all our numerous race alone 
Defend my life, regardless of your own." 

Again the goddess : " Much my father's prayer, 305 
And much my mother's, press'd me to forbear: 
My friends embraced my knees, adjur'd my stay, 
But stronger love impell'd, and I obey. 
Come then, the glorious conflict let us try, 
Let the steel sparkle and the javelin fly; 310 

Or let us stretch Achilles on the field, 
Or to his arm our bloody trophies yield." 

Fraudful she said; then swiftly march' d before; 
The Dardan hero shuns his foe no more. 
Sternly they met. The silence Hector broke; 315 

His dreadful plumage nodded as he spoke: 

"Enough, O son of Peleus! Troy has view'd 
Her walls thrice circled, and her chief pursu'd. 
But now some god within me bids me try 
Thine, or my fate : I kill thee, or I die. 320 

Yet on the verge of battle let us stay, 
And for a moment's space suspend the day: 
Let heaven's high powers be call'd to arbitrate 



BOOK XXII. 61 

The just conditions of this stern debate : 

(Eternal witnesses of all below, 325 

And faithful guardians of the treasur'd vow !) 

To them I swear : if, victor in the strife, 

Jove by these hands shall shed thy noble life, 

No vile dishonour shall thy corse pursue ; 

Stripp'd of its arms alone, (the conqueror's due,) 330 

The rest to Greece uninjur'd I'll restore : 

Now plight thy mutual oath, I ask no more." 

"Talk not of oaths," (the dreadful chief replies, 
While anger flash'd from his disdainful eyes,) 
" Detested as thou art, and ought to be, 335 

Nor oath nor pact Achilles plights with thee ; 
Such pacts, as lambs and rabid wolves combine, 
Such leagues, as men and furious lions join, 
To such I call the gods ! one constant state 
Of lasting rancour and eternal hate : 340 

No thought but rage, and never-ceasing strife, 
Till death extinguish rage, and thought, and life. 
Rouse then thy forces this important hour, 
Collect thy soul, and call forth all thy power. 
No farther subterfuge, no farther chance ; 345 

' Tis Pallas, Pallas gives thee to my lance. 
Each Grecian ghost by thee deprived of breath, 
Now hovers round, and calls thee to thy death." 

He spoke, and launch'd his javelin at the foe ; 
But Hector shunn'd the meditated blow : 35a 

He stoop'd, while o'er his head the flying spear 
Sung innocent, and spent its force in air. 
Minerva watch' d it falling on the land, 
Then drew, and gave to great Achilles' hand, 



62 THE ILIAD. 

Unseen of Hector, who elate with joy, 355 

Now shakes his lance, and braves the dread of Troy* 

" The life you boasted to that javelin given, 
Prince ! you have miss'd. My fate depends on heaven. 
To thee (presumptuous as thou art) unknown 
Or what must prove my fortune, or thy own. 360 

Boasting is but an art, our fears to blind, 
And with false terrors sink another's mind. 
But know, whatever fate I am to try, 
By no dishonest wound shall Hector die ; 
I shall not fall a fugitive at least, 365 

My soul shall bravely issue from my breast. 
But first, try thou my arm ; and may this dart 
End all my country's woes, deep buried in thy heart ! " 

The weapon flew, its course unerring held ; 
Unerring, but the heavenly shield repell'd 370 

The mortal dart ; resulting with a bound 
From off the ringing orb, it struck the ground. 
Hector beheld his javelin fall in vain, - 
Nor other lance nor other hope remain ; 
He calls Deiphobus, demands a spear, 375 

In vain, for no Deiphobus was there. 
All comfortless he stands : then, with a sigh, 
" 'Tis so — heaven wills it, and my hour is nigh ! 
I deem'd Deiphobus had heard my call, 
But he secure lies guarded in the wall. 380 

A god deceiv'd me ; Pallas, 'twas thy deed : 
Death and black fate approach ! 'tis I must bleed : 
No refuge now, no succour from above, 
Great Jove deserts me, and the son of Jove, 
Propitious once, and kind ! Then welcome fate ! 385 



BOOK XXII. 63 

Tis true I perish, yet I perish great; 
Yet in a mighty deed I shall expire, 
Let future ages hear it, and admire ! ' 

Fierce, at the word, his weighty sword he drew, 
And, all collected, on Achilles flew. 390 

So Jove's bold bird, high balanced in the air, 
Stoops from the clouds to truss the quivering hare. 
Nor less Achilles his fierce soul prepares ; 
Before his breast the flaming shield he bears, 
Refulgent orb ! above his fourfold cone 395 

The gilded horse-hair sparkled in the sun, 
Nodding at every step, (Vulcanian frame !) 
And as he mov'd, his figure seem'd on flame. 
As radiant Hesper shines with keener light, 
Far- beaming o'er the silver host of night, 400 

When all the starry train emblaze the sphere : 
So shone the point of great Achilles' spear. 
In his right hand he waves the weapon round, 
Eyes the whole man, and meditates the wound : 
But the rich mail Patroclus lately wore, 405 

Securely cased the warrior's body o'er. 
One place at length he spies, to let in fate, 
Where 'twixt the neck and throat the jointed plate 
Gave entrance : through that penetrable part 
Furious he drove the well-directed dart : 410 

Nor pierced the windpipe yet, nor took the power 
Of speech, unhappy ! from thy dying hour. 
Prone on the field the bleeding warrior lies, 
While thus, triumphing, stern Achilles cries : 

" At last is Hector stretch'd upon the plain, 415 

Who fear'd no vengeance for Patroclus slain : 



64 THE ILIAD. 

Then prince ! you should have fear'd, what now you feel ; 

Achilles absent was Achilles still. 

Yet a short space the great avenger stay'd, 

Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid. 420 

Peaceful he sleeps, with all our rites adorn'd, 

For ever honour'd, and for ever mourn'd : 

While, cast to all the rage of hostile power, 

Thee birds shall mangle, and the dogs devour." 

Then Hector, fainting at th' approach of death : 425 
" By thy own soul ! by those who gave thee breath ! 
By all the sacred prevalence of prayer • 
Ah, leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear ! 
The common rites of sepulture bestow, 
To soothe a father's and a mother's woe ; 430 

Let their large gifts procure an urn at least, 
And Hector's ashes in his country rest." 

" No, wretch accurs'd ! " relentless he replies, 
(Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes,) 
Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare, 435 
Nor all the sacred prevalence of prayer. 
Could I myself the bloody banquet join ! 
No — to the dogs that carcass I resign. 
Should Troy to bribe me bring forth all her store, 
And, giving thousands, offer thousands more ; 440 

Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame, 
Drain their whole realm to buy one funeral flame ; 
Their Hector on the pile they should not see, 
Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee." 

Then thus the chief his dying accents drew : 445 

" Thy rage, implacable ! too well I knew : 
The Furies that relentless breast have steel'd 



BOOK XXII. 65 

And curs'd thee with a heart that cannot yield. 

Yet think, a day will come, when Fate's decree 

And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee; 450 

Phoebus and Paris shall avenge my fate, 

And stretch thee here, before this Scaean gate." 

He ceas'd: the fates suppress'd his labouring breath, 
And his eyes stiffen'd at the hand of death; 
To the dark realm the spirit wings its way, 455 

(The manly body left a load of clay,) 
And plaintive glides along the dreary coast, 
A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost ! 

Achilles, musing as he roll'd his eyes 
O'er the dead hero, thus (unheard) replies: 460 

" Die thou the first ! when Jove and heaven ordain, 
I follow thee." He said, and stripp'd the slain. 
Then, forcing backward from the gaping wound 
The reeking javelin, cast it on the ground. 
The thronging Greeks behold with wondering eyes 465 
His manly beauty, and superior size : 
While some, ignobler, the great dead deface 
With wounds ungenerous, or with taunts disgrace. 
" How changed that Hector ! who, like Jove, of late 
Sent lightning on our fleets and scatter'd fate ! " 470 

High o'er the slain the great Achilles stands, 
Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands; 
And thus aloud, while all the host attends : 
" Princes and leaders ! countrymen and friends ! 
Since now at length the powerful will of heaven 475 

The dire destroyer to oui arm has given, 
Is not Troy fall'n already? Haste, ye powers ! 
See if already their deserted towers 



66 THE ILIAD. 

Are left unmann'd ; or if they yet retain 

The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain? 480 

But what is Troy, or glory what to me ? 

Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee, 

Divine Patroclus ! death has seal'd his eyes ; 

Unwept, unhonour'd, uninterr'd he lies ! 

Can his dear image from my soul depart, 485 

Long as the vital spirit moves my heart? 

If, in the melancholy shades below, 

The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow, 

Yet mine shall sacred last; mine, undecay'd, 

Burn on through death, and animate my shade. 490 

Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring 

The corse of Hector, and your Paeans sing. 

Be this the song, slow moving tow'rd the shore, 

' Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more.' " 

Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred ; 495 
(Unworthy of himself, and of the dead ;) 
The nervous ancles bor'd, his feet he bound 
With thongs inserted through the double wound ; 
These fix'd up high behind the rolling wain, 
His graceful head was trailed along the plain. 500 

Proud on his car th' insulting victor stood, 
And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood. 
He smites the steeds ; the rapid chariot flies ; 
The sudden clouds of circling dust arise. 
Now lost is all that formidable air ; 505 

The face divine, and long-descending hair, 
Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand ; 
Deform'd, dishonour'd, in his native land ! 
Given to the rage of an insulting throng ! 




Friedrich Preller. 



Iliad — Book XXI I. , 495-510. 



BOOK XXII. 67 

And, in his parents' sight, now dragg'd along. 510 

The mother first beheld with sad survey ; 
She rent her tresses, venerably grey, 
And cast far off the regal veils away. 
With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans, 
While the sad father answers groans with groans ; 515 

Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o'erflow, 
And the whole city wears one face of woe : 
No less than if the rage of hostile fires, 
From her foundations curling to her spires 
O'er the proud citadel at length should rise, 520 

And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies. 
The wretched monarch of the falling state, 
Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate : 
Scarce the whole people stop his desperate course, 
While strong affliction gives the feeble force : 525 

Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro, 
In all the raging impotence of woe. 
At length he roll'd in dust, and thus begun, 
Imploring all, and naming one by one : 
" Ah ! let me, let me go where sorrow calls ; 530 

I, only I, will issue from your walls, 
(Guide or companion, friends ! I ask ye none,) 
And bow before the murderer of my son. 
My grief perhaps his pity may engage ; 
Perhaps at least he may respect my age. 535 

He has a father, too ; a man like me ; 
One, not exempt from age and misery : 
(Vig'rous no more, as when his young embrace 
Begot this pest of me, and all my race.) 
How many valiant sons, in early bloom, 540 



68 THE ILIAD. 

Has that curs'd hand sent headlong to the tomb ! 

Thee, Hector ! last ; thy loss (divinely brave !) 

Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave. 

Oh had thy gentle spirit pass'd in peace, 

The son expiring in the sire's embrace, 545 

While both thy parents wept thy fatal hour, 

And, bending o'er thee, mix'd the tender shower ! 

Some comfort that had been, some sad relief, 

To melt in full satiety of grief! " 

Thus wail'd the father, grovelling on the ground, 550 
And all the eyes of Ilion stream'd around. 

Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears : 
(A mourning princess, and a train in tears :) 
" Ah ! why has heaven prolong'd this hated breath, 
Patient of horrors, to behold thy death? 555 

O Hector ! late thy parents' pride and joy, 
The boast of nations ! the defence of Troy ! 
To whom her safety and her fame she owed, 
Her chief, her hero, and almost her god ! 
O fatal change ! become in one sad day 560 

A senseless corse ! inanimated clay ! " 

But not as yet the fatal news had spread 
To fair Andromache, of Hector dead ; 
As yet no messenger had told his fate, 
Nor e'en his stay without the Scaean gate. 565 

Far in the close recesses of the dome 
Pensive she plied the melancholy loom ; 
A growing work employ'd her secret hours, 
Confus'dly gay with intermingled flowers. 
Her fair-hair'd handmaids heat the brazen urn, 570 

The bath preparing for her lord's return : 



BOOK XXII. 6g 

In vain : alas ! her lord returns no more ! 

Unbathed he lies, and bleeds along the shore ! 

Now from the walls the clamours reach her ear 

And all her members shake with sudden fear ; 575 

Forth from her ivory hand the shuttle falls, 

As thus, astonish'd, to her maids she calls : 

" Ah, follow me ! " (she cried ;) " what plaintive noise 
Invades my ear? 'Tis sure my mother's voice. 
My faltering knees their trembling frame desert, 580 

A pulse unusual flutters at my heart. 
Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate 
(Ye gods avert it !) threats the Trojan state. 
Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest ! 
But much I fear my Hector's dauntless breast 585 

Confronts Achilles ; chas'd along the plain, 
Shut from our walls ! I fear, I fear him slain ! 
Safe in the crowd he ever scorn'd to wait, 
And sought for glory in the jaws of fate : 
Perhaps that noble heat has cost his breath, 590 

Now quench'd for ever in the arms of death." 

She spoke ; and, furious, with distracted pace, 
Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face, 
Flies through the dome, (the maids her steps pursue,) 
And mounts the walls, and sends around her view. 595 
Too soon her eyes the killing object found, 
The godlike Hector dragged along the ground. 
- A sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes : 
She faints, she falls ; her breath, her colour, flies. 
Her hair's fair ornaments, the braids that bound, 60c 

The net that held them, and the wreath that crown'd, 
The veil and diadem, flew far away ; 



70 THE ILIAD. 

(The gift of Venus on her bridal day.) 

Around, a train of weeping sisters stands, 

To raise her sinking with assistant hands. 605 

Scarce from the verge of death recall'd, again 

She faints, or but recovers to complain : 

" O wretched husband of a wretched wife ! 
Born with one fate, to one unhappy life ! 
For sure one star its baneful beam display'd 610 

On Priam's roof, and Hippoplacia's shade. 
From different parents, different climes, we came, 
At different periods, yet our fate the same ! 
Why was my birth to great Eetion ow'd, 
And why was all that tender care bestow'd? 615 

Would I had never been ! — Oh thou, the ghost 
Of my dead husband ! miserably lost ! 
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone ! 
And I abandon'd, desolate, alone ! 

An only child, once comfort of my pains, 620 

Sad product now of hapless love, remains ! 
No more to smile upon his sire ! no friend 
To help him now ! no father to defend ! 
For should he 'scape the sword, the common doom, 
What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come ! 625 
E'en from his own paternal roof expell'd, 
Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field. 
The day that to the shades the father sends, 
Robs the sad orphan of his father's friends : 
He, wretched outcast of mankind ! appears 630 

For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears; 
Amongst the happy, unregarded he 
Hangs on the robe or trembles at the knee ; 



BOOK XXII. 71 

While those his father's former bounty fed, 

Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread : 635 

The kindest but his present wants allay, 

To leave him wretched the succeeding day. 

Frugal compassion ! Heedless, they who boast 

Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost, 

Shall cry, ' Begone! thy father feasts not here: ' 640 

The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear. 

Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears, 

To my sad soul Astyanax appears ! 

Forced by repeated insults to return, 

And to his widow' d mother vainly mourn. 645 

He who, with tender delicacy bred, 

With princes sported, and on dainties fed, 

And, when still evening gave him up to rest 

Sunk soft in down upon the nurse's breast, 

Must — ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls 650 

Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls, 

Is now that name no more, unhappy boy ! 

Since now T no more thy father guards his Troy. 

But thou, my Hector! liest expos'd in air, 

Far from thy parents' and thy consort's care, 655 

Whose hand in vain, directed by her love, 

The martial scarf and robe of triumph wove. 

Now to devouring flames be these a prey, 

Useless to thee, from this accursed day ! 

Yet let the sacrifice at least be paid, 660 

An honour to the living, not the dead ! " 

So spake the mournful dame : her matrons hear, 
Sigh back her sighs, and answer tear with tear. 



m 






M 



- 




J. Flax man arid A. S chill. 



BOOK XXIV. 



THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY OF HECTOR. 



Now from the finish'd games the Grecian band 
Seek their black ships, and clear the crowded strand : 
All stretch'd at ease the genial banquet share, 
And pleasing slumbers quiet all their care. 
Not so Achilles : he, to grief resign'd, 5 

His friend's dear image present to his mind, 
Takes his sad couch, more unobserv'd to weep, 
Nor tastes the gifts of all-composing sleep ; 
Restless he roll'd around his weary bed, 
And all his soul on his Patroclus fed : 10 

The form so pleasing, and the heart so kind, 
That youthful vigour, and that manly mind, 
What toils they shar'd^ what martial works they wrought, 
What seas they measur'd, and what fields they fought; 

72 



BOOK XXIV. 73 

All pass'd before him in remembrance dear, 15 

Thought follows thought, and tear succeeds to tear. 

And now supine, now prone, the hero lay, 

Now shifts his side, impatient for the day ; 

Then starting up, disconsolate he goes 

Wide on the lonely beach to vent his woes. 20 

There as the solitary mourner raves, 

The ruddy morning rises o'er the waves : 

Soon as it rose, his furious steeds he join'd; 

The chariot flies, and Hector trails behind. 

And thrice, Patroclus ! round thy monument 25 

Was Hector dragg'd, then hurried to the tent. 

There sleep at last o'ercomes the hero's eyes ; 

While foul in dust th' unhonour'd carcass lies, 

But not deserted by the pitying skies. 

For Phoebus watch'd it with superior care, 30 

Preserv'd from gaping wounds, and tainting air ; 

And, ignominious as it swept the field, 

Spread o'er the sacred corse his golden shield. 

All heaven was mov'd, and Hermes wilPd to go 

By stealth to snatch him from th' insulting foe ; 35 

But Neptune this, and Pallas this denies, 

And th' unrelenting empress of the skies : 

E'er since that day implacable to Troy, 

What time young Paris, simple shepherd boy, 

Won by destructive lust (reward obscene) 40 

Their charms rejected for the Cyprian queen. 

But when the tenth celestial morning broke, 

To heaven assembled, thus Apollo spoke : 

" Unpitying powers ! how oft each holy fane 
Has Hector tinged with blood of victims slain ? 45 



74 THE ILIAD. 

And can ye still his cold remains pursue ? 

Still grudge his body to the Trojans' view? 

Deny to consort, mother, son, and sire, 

The last sad honours of a funeral fire ? 

Is then the dire Achilles all your care ? 50 

That iron heart, inflexibly severe ; 

A lion, not a man, who slaughters wide 

In strength of rage and impotence of pride ; 

Who hastes to murder with a savage joy, 

Invades around, and breathes but to destroy. 55 

Shame is not of his soul, nor understood, 

The greatest evil and the greatest good. 

Still for one loss he rages unresign'd, 

Repugnant to the lot of all mankind ; 

To lose a friend, a brother, or a son, 60 

Heaven dooms each mortal, and its will is done : 

Awhile they sorrow, then dismiss their care ; 

Fate gives the wound, and man is born to bear. 

But this insatiate the commission given 

By fate exceeds, and tempts the wrath of heaven : 65 

Lo how his rage dishonest drags along 

Hector's dead earth, insensible of wrong ! 

Brave though he be, yet by no reason aw'd, 

He violates the laws of man and God !" 

" If equal honours by the partial skies 70 

Are doom'd both heroes," (Juno thus replies,) 
" If Thetis' son must no distinction know, 
Then hear, ye gods ! the patron of the bow. 
But Hector only boasts a mortal claim, 
His birth deriving from a mortal dame : 75 

Achilles of your own ethereal race 



BOOK XXIV. 75 

Springs from a goddess, by a man's embrace : 

(A goddess by ourself to Peleus given. 

A man divine, and chosen friend of heaven :) 

To grace those nuptials, from the bright abode 80 

Yourselves were present ; where this minstrel-god 

(Well-pleas'd to share the feast) amid the quire 

Stood proud to hymn, and tune his youthful lyre." 

Then thus the Thunderer checks the imperial dame : 
" Let not thy wrath the court of heaven inflame ; 85 

Their merits, nor their honours, are the same. 
But mine, and every god's peculiar grace 
Hector deserves, of all the Trojan race : 
Still on our shrines his grateful offerings lay 
(The only honours men to gods can pay,) 90 

Nor ever from our smoking altar ceas'd 
The pure libation, and the holy feast. 
Howe'er, by stealth to snatch the corse away, 
We will not : Thetis guards it night and day. 
But haste, and summon to our courts above 95 

The azure queen : let her persuasion move 
Her furious son from Priam to receive 
The proffer 'd ransom, and the corse to leave." 

He added not : and Iris from the skies, 
Swift as a whirlwind, on the message flies ; 100 

Meteorous the face of ocean sweeps, 
Refulgent gliding o'er the sable deeps. 
Between where Samos wide his forests spreads, 
And rocky Imbrus lifts its pointed heads, 
Down plunged the maid ; (the parted waves resound ;) 105 
She plunged, and instant shot the dark profound. 
As, bearing death in the fallacious bait, 



76 THE ILIAD. 

From the bent angle sinks the leaden weight ; 

So pass'd the goddess through the closing wave, 

Where Thetis sorrow'd in her secret cave : no 

There placed amidst her melancholy train 

(The blue-hair'd sisters of the sacred main) 

Pensive she sat, revolving fates to come, 

And wept her godlike son's approaching doom. 

Then thus the goddess of the painted bow : 115 

" Arise, O Thetis ! from thy seats below ; 
Tis Jove that calls." " And why," (the dame replies) 
" Calls Jove his Thetis to the hated skies ? 
Sad object as I am for heavenly sight ! 
Ah ! may my sorrows ever shun the light ! 120 

Howe'er, be heaven's almighty sire obeyed." 
She spake, and veil'd her head in sable shade, 
Which, flowing long, her graceful person clad ; 
And forth she paced majestically sad. 

Then through the world of waters they repair 125 

(The way fair Iris led) to upper air. 
The deeps dividing, o'er the coast they rise, 
And touch with momentary flight the skies. 
There in the lightning's blaze the sire they found, 
And all the gods in shining synod round. 130 

Thetis approach'd with anguish in her face, 
(Minerva rising gave the mourner place,) 
E'en Juno sought her sorrows to console, 
And offer'd from her hand the nectar bowl : 
She tasted, and resign'd it : then began 135 

The sacred sire of gods and mortal man : 
" Thou com'st, fair Thetis, but with grief o'ercast, 
Maternal sorrows, long, ah long to last ! 



BOOK XXIV. 77 

Suffice, we know, and we partake, thy cares : 

But yield to fate, and hear what Jove declares. 140 

Nine days are past, since all the court above 

In Hector's cause have mov'd the ear of Jove ; 

'Twas voted, Hermes from his godlike foe 

By stealth should bear him, but we wilFd not so : 

We will, thy son himself the corse restore, 145 

And to his conquest add this glory more. 

Then hie thee to him, and our mandate bear ; 

Tell him he tempts the wrath of heaven too far : 

Nor let him more (our anger if he dread) 

Vent his mad vengeance on the sacred dead : 150 

But yield to ransom and the father's prayer. 

The mournful father Iris shall prepare, 

With gifts to sue ; and offer to his hands 

Whate'er his honour asks or heart demands." 

His word the silver-footed queen attends, 155 

And from Olympus' snowy tops descends. 
Afriv'd, she heard the voice of loud lament, 
And echoing groans that shook the lofty tent. 
His- friends prepare the victim and dispose 
Repast unheeded, while he vents his woes. 160 

The goddess seats her by her pensive son ; 
She press'd his hand, and tender thus begun : 

" How long, unhappy ! shall thy sorrows flow? 
And thy heart waste with life-consuming woe ? 
Mindless of food, or love, whose pleasing reign 165 

Soothes weary life, and softens human pain. 
O snatch the moments yet within thy power ; 
Not long to live, indulge the amorous hour ! 
Lo ! Jove himself (for Jove's command I bear,) 



7& THE ILIAD. 

Forbids to tempt the wrath of heaven too far. 170 

No longer then, (his fury if thou dread) 

Detain the relics of great Hector dead ; 

Nor vent on senseless earth thy vengeance vain, 

But yield to ransom and restore the slain." 

To whom Achilles : " Be the ransom given, 175 

And we submit, since such the will of heaven." 

While thus they commun'd, from th' Olympian bowers 
Jove orders Iris to the Trojan towers : 
" Haste, winged goddess, to the sacred town, 
And urge her monarch to redeem his son ; 180 

Alone, the Ilian ramparts let him leave, 
And bear what stern Achilles may receive : 
Alone, for so we will : no Trojan near ; 
Except, to place the dead with decent care, 
Some aged herald, who, with gentle hand, 185 

May the slow mules and funeral car command. 
Nor let him death, nor let him danger dread, 
Safe through the foe by our protection led : 
Him Hermes to Achilles shall convey, 
Guard of his life, and partner of his way. 190 

Fierce as he is, Achilles' self shall spare 
His age, nor touch one venerable hair : 
Some thought there must be in a soul so brave, 
Some sense of duty, some desire to save." 

Then down her bow the winged Iris drives, 195 

And swift at Priam's mournful court arrives : 
Where the sad sons beside their father's throne 
Sat bathed in tears, and answered groan with groan. 
And all amidst them lay the hoary sire, 
(Sad scene of woe !) his face, his wrapp'd attire 200 



BOOK XXIV. 79 

Conceal'd from sight ; with frantic hands he spread 
A shower of ashes o'er his neck and head. 
From room to room his pensive daughters roam : 
Whose shrieks and clamours fill the vaulted dome ; 
Mindful of those, who, late their pride and joy, 205 

Lie pale and breathless round the fields of Troy ! 
Before the king Jove's messenger appears, 
And thus in whispers greets his trembling ears : 

" Fear not, oh father ! no ill news I bear ; 
From Jove I come, Jove makes thee still his care ; 210 
For Hector's sake these walls he bids thee leave, 
And bear what stern Achilles may receive : 
Alone, for so he wills : no Trojan near, 
Except, to place the dead with decent care, 
Some aged herald, who, with gentle hand, 215 

May the slow mules and funeral car command. 
Nor shalt thou death, nor shalt thou danger dread ; 
Safe through the foe by his protection led : 
Thee Hermes to Pelides shall convey, 
Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way. 220 

Fierce as he is, Achilles' self shall spare 
Thy age, nor touch one venerable hair : 
Some thought there must be in a soul so brave, 
Some sense of duty, some desire to save." 

She spoke, and vanish'd. Priam bids prepare 225 

His gentle mules, and harness to the car ; 
There, for the gifts, a polish'd casket lay ; 
His pious sons the king's commands obey. 
Then pass'd the monarch to his bridal-room, 
Where cedar-beams the lofty roofs perfume, 230 

And where the treasures of his empire lay ; 



80 THE ILIAD. 

Then call'd his queen, and thus began to say : 

" Unhappy consort of a king distress'd ! 
Partake the troubles of thy husband's breast : 
I saw descend the messenger of Jove, 235 

Who bids me try Achilles' mind to move, 
Forsake these ramparts, and with gifts obtain 
The corse of Hector, at yon navy slain. 
Tell me thy thought : my heart impels to go 
Through hostile camps, and bears me to the foe." 240 

The hoary monarch thus : her piercing cries 
Sad Hecuba renews, and then replies : 
" Ah ! whither wanders thy distemper'd mind ; 
And where the prudence now that awed mankind, 
Through Phrygia once, and foreign regions known ? 245 
Now all confus'd, distracted, overthrown ! 
Singly to pass through hosts of foes ! to face 
(Oh heart of steel !) the murderer of thy race ! 
To view that deathful eye, and wander o'er 
Those hands, yet red with Hector's noble gore ! 250 

Alas ! my lord ! he knows not how to spare, 
And what his mercy thy slain sons declare ; 
So brave ! so many fall'n ! to calm his rage 
Vain were thy dignity, and vain thy age. 
No — pent in this sad palace, let us give 255 

To grief the wretched days we have to live. 
Still, still, for Hector let our sorrows flow, 
Born to his own, and to his parents' woe ! 
Doom'd from the hour his luckless life begun, 
To dogs, to vultures, and to Peleus' son ! 260 

Oh ! in his dearest blood might I allay 
My rage, and these barbarities repay ! 



BOOK XXIV. 81 

For ah ! could Hector merit thus? whose breath 
Expir'd not meanly, in inactive death : 
He pour'd his latest blood in manly tight, 265 

And fell a hero in his country's right." 

" Seek not to stay me, nor my soul affright 
With words of omen, like a bird of night," 
(Replied unmov'd the venerable man :) 
" Tis heaven commands me, and you urge in vain. 270 
Had any mortal voice th' injunction laid, 
Nor augur, priest, nor seer had been obey'd. 
A present goddess brought the high command : 
I saw, I heard her, and the word shall stand. 
I go, ye gods ! obedient to your call : 275 

If in yon camp your powers have doom'd my fall, 
Content : by the same hand let me expire ! 
Add to the slaughter'd son the wretched sire ! 
One cold embrace at least may be allow'd, 
And my last tears flow mingled with his blood ! " 280 

Forth from his open'd stores, this said, he drew 
Twelve costly carpets of refulgent hue ; 
As many vests, as many mantles told, 
And twelve fair veils, and garments stiff with gold ; 
Two tripods next, and twice two chargers shine, 285 

With ten pure talents from the richest mine ; 
And last a large, well-labour' d bowl had place, 
(The pledge of treaties once with friendly Thrace ;) 
Seenrd all too mean the stores he could employ, 
For one last look to buy him back to Troy ! 290 

Lo ! the sad father, frantic with his pain, 
Around him furious drives his menial train : 
In vain each slave with duteous care attends, 

G 



82 THE ILIAD. 

Each office hurts him, and each face offends. 

"What make ye here, officious crowds! " (he cries) 295 

"Hence, nor obtrude your anguish on my eyes. 

Have ye no griefs at home, to fix ye there? 

Am I the only object of despair? 

Am I become my people's common show, 

Set up by Jove your spectacle of woe? 300 

No, you must feel him too : yourselves must fall : 

The same stern god to ruin gives you all : 

Nor is great Hector lost by me alone : 

Your sole defence, your guardian power, is gone ! 

I see your blood the fields of Phrygia drown; 305 

I see the ruins of your smoking town ! 

Oh send me, gods, ere that sad day shall come, 

A willing ghost to Pluto's dreary dome ! " 

He said, and feebly drives his friends away : 
The sorrowing friends his frantic rage obey. 310 

Next on his sons his erring fury falls, 
Polites, Paris, Agathon, he calls; 
His threats Dei'phobus and Dius hear, 
Hippothoiis, Pammon, Helenus the seer, 
And generous Antiphon; for yet these nine 315 

Survived, sad relics of his numerous line: 

" Inglorious sons of an unhappy sire ! 
Why did not all in Hector's cause expire? 
Wretch that I am ! my bravest offspring slain, 
You, the disgrace of Priam's house, remain! 320 

Nestor the brave, renown' d in ranks of war, 
With Troilus, dreadful on his rushing car, 
And last great Hector, more than man divine, 
For sure he seem'd not of terrestrial line ! 







Friedrich Preller 



Iliad — Book XXIV., 331-406. 



BOOK XXIV. 83 

All those relentless Mars untimely slew, 325 

And left me these, a soft and servile crew, 

Whose days the feast and wanton dance employ, 

Gluttons and flatterers, the contempt of Troy ! 

Why teach ye not my rapid wheels to run, 

And speed my journey to redeem my son?" 330 

The sons their father's wretched age revere, 
Forgive his anger, and produce the car. 
High on the seat the cabinet they bind : 
The new-made car with solid beauty shined : 
Box was the yoke, embossed with costly pains, 335 

And hung with ringlets to receive the reins : 
Nine cubits long, the traces swept the ground ; 
These to the chariot's polish'd pole they bound, 
Then fix'd a ring the running reins to guide, 
And, close beneath, the gather'd ends were tied. 340 

Next with the gifts (the price of Hector slain) 
The sad attendants load the groaning wain : 
Last to the yoke the well- match 'd mules they bring, 
(The gift of Mysia to the Trojan king.) 
But the fair horses, long his darling care, 345 

Himself receiv'd, and harness'd to his car : 
Griev'd as he was, he not this task denied ; 
The hoary herald helped him at his side. 
While careful these the gentle coursers join'd, 
Sad Hecuba approach'd with anxious mind ; 350 

A golden bowl, that foam'd with fragrant wine, 
(Libation destin'd to the power divine,) 
Held in her right, before the steeds she stands, 
And thus consigns it to the monarch's hands : 

" Take this, and pour to Jove ; that, safe from harms, 355 



84 THE ILIAD. 

His grace restore thee to our roof and arms. 

Since, victor of thy fears, and slighting mine, 

Heaven, or thy soul, inspire this bold design, 

Pray to that god, who, high on Ida's brow 

Surveys thy desolated realms below, 360 

His winged messenger to send from high, 

And lead the way with heavenly augury : 

Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race 

Tower on the right of yon ethereal space. 

That sign beheld, and strengthen'd from above, 365 

Boldly pursue the journey mark'd by Jove ; . m 

But if the god his augury denies, 

Suppress thy impulse, nor reject advice." 

" 'Tis just " (said Priam) " to the Sire above 
To raise our hands ; for who so good as Jove ? " 370 

He spoke, and bade th' attendant handmaid bring 
The purest water of the living spring ; 
(Her ready hands the ewer and bason held ;) 
Then took the golden cup his queen had fill'd ; 
On the mid pavement pours the rosy wine, 375 

Uplifts his eyes, and calls the power divine : 

" Oh first and greatest ! heaven's imperial lord ! 
On lofty Ida's holy hill adored ! 
To stern Achilles now direct my ways, 
And teach him mercy when a father prays. 380 

If such thy will, despatch from yonder sky 
Thy sacred bird, celestial augury ! 
Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race 
Tower on the right of yon ethereal space : 
So shall thy suppliant, strengthen'd from above, 385 

Fearless pursue the journey mark'd by Jove." 



BOOK XXIV. 85 

Jove heard his prayer, and from the throne on high 
Despatched his bird, celestial augury! 
The swift-wing' d chaser of the feather' d game, 
And known to gods by Percnos' lofty name. 390 

Wide as appears some palace-gate display' d, 
So broad his pinions stretch'd their ample shade, 
As, stooping dexter with resounding wings, 
Th' imperial bird descends in airy rings. 
A dawn of joy in every face appears; 395 

The mourning matron dries her timorous tears. 
Swift on his car th' impatient monarch sprung; 
The brazen portal in his passage rung. 
The mules preceding draw the loaded wain, 
Charged with the gifts; Idseus holds the rein: 400 

The king himself his gentle steeds controls, 
And through surrounding friends the chariot rolls; 
On his slow wheels the following people wait, 
Mourn at each step, and give him up to fate; 
With hands uplifted, eye him as he pass'd, 405 

And gaze upon him as they gaz'd their last. 

Now forward fares the father on his way, 
Through the lone fields, and back to Ilion they. 
Great Jove beheld him as he cross' d the plain, 
And felt the woes of miserable man. 410 

Then thus to Hermes: "Thou, whose constant cares 
Still succour mortals, and attend their prayers ! 
Behold an object to thy charge consign' d; 
If ever pity touch' d thee for mankind, 
Go, guard the sire; th' observing foe prevent, 415 

And safe conduct him to Achilles' tent." 

The god obeys, his golden pinions binds, 



86 THE ILIAD. 

And mounts incumbent on the wings of winds, 

That high through fields of air his flight sustain, 

O'er the wide earth, and o'er the boundless main: 420 

Then grasps the wand that causes sleep to fly, 

Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye : 

Thus arm'd, swift Hermes steers his airy way, 

And stoops on Hellespont's resounding sea. 

A beauteous youth, majestic and divine, 425 

He seem'd ; fair offspring of some princely line ! 

Now twilight veil'd the glaring face of day, 

And clad the dusky fields in sober grey ; 

What time the herald and the hoary king, 

Their chariot stopping at the silver spring, 430 

That circling Ilus' ancient marble flows, 

Allow'd their mules and steeds a short repose. 

Through the dim shade the herald first espies 

A man's approach, and thus to Priam cries : 

" I mark some foe's advance : O king ! beware ; 435 

This hard adventure claims thy utmost care ; 

For much I fear destruction hovers nigh :' 

Our state asks counsel. Is it best to fly? 

Or, old and helpless, at his feet to fall, 

(Two wretched suppliants) and for mercy call? ,, 440 

Th' afflicted monarch shiver'd with despair ; 
Pale grew his face, and upright stood his hair ; 
Sunk was his heart ; his colour went and came ; 
A sudden trembling shook his aged frame : 
When Hermes, greeting, touch'd his royal hand, 445 

And, gentle, thus accosts with kind demand : 

" Say whither, father ! when each mortal sight 
Is seal'd in sleep, thou wander'st through the night? 



BOOK XXIV. 87 

Why roam thy mules and steeds the plains along, 
Through Grecian foes, so numerous and so strong? 450 
What couldst thou hope, should these thy treasures view : 
These, who with endless hate thy race pursue? 
For what defence, alas ! couldst thou provide ? 
Thyself not young, a weak old man thy guide. 
Yet suffer not thy soul to sink with dread ; 455 

From me no harm shall touch thy reverend head : 
From Greece I'll guard thee too ; for in those lines 
The living image of my father shines." 

" Thy words, that speak benevolence of mind. 
Are true, my son ! " (the godlike sire rejoin'd :) 460 

" Great are my hazards ; but the gods survey 
My steps and send thee, guardian of my way. 
Hail ! and be blest • for scarce of mortal kind 
Appear thy form, thy feature, and thy mind." 

" Nor true are all thy words, nor erring wide," 465 

(The sacred messenger of heaven replied :) 
" But say, convey'st thou through the lonely plains 
What yet most precious of thy store remains, 
To lodge in safety with some friendly hand ? 
Prepar'd perchance to leave thy native land ? 470 

Or fly'st thou now? What hopes can Troy retain, 
Thy matchless son, her guard and glory, slain?" 

The king, alarmed : " Say what and whence thou art, 
Who search the sorrows of a parent's heart, 
And know so well how godlike Hector died? " 475 

Thus Priam spoke, and Hermes thus replied : 

" You tempt me, father, and with pity touch : 
On this sad subject you inquire too much. 
Oft have these eyes the godlike Hector view'd 



88 THE ILIAD. 

In glorious fight, with Grecian blood imbrued ; 480 

I saw him when, like Jove, his flames he toss'd 

On thousand ships, and wither'd half a host : 

I saw, but help'd not, stern Achilles' ire 

Forbade assistance, and enjoy'd the fire. 

For him I serve, of Myrmidonian race ; 485 

One ship convey'd us from our native place ; 

Polyctor is my sire, an honoured name, 

Old like thyself, and not unknown to fame \ 

Of seven his sons, by whom the lot was cast 

To serve our prince, it fell on me the last. 490 

To watch this quarter my adventure falls ; 

For with the morn, the Greeks attack your walls ; 

Sleepless they sit, impatient to engage, 

And scarce their rulers check their martial rage," 

" If then thou art of stern Pelides' train," 495 

(The mournful monarch thus rejoin'd again,) 
" Ah, tell me truly, where, oh ! where are laid 
My son's dear relics? what befalls him dead? 
Have dogs dismember'd on the naked plains, 
Or yet unmangled rest his cold remains? " 500 

" O favour'd of the skies ! " (thus answer'd then 
The power that mediates between gods and men,) 
" Nor dogs, nor vultures, have thy Hector rent, 
But whole he lies, neglected in the tent : 
This the twelfth evening since he rested there, 505 

Untouch'd by worms, untainted by the air. 
Still as Aurora's ruddy beam is spread, 
Round his friend's tomb Achilles drags the dead ; 
Yet undisfigur'd, or in limb or face, 
All fresh he lies, with every living grace, 510 



BOOK XXIV. 89 

Majestical in death ! No stains are found 

O'er all the corse, and closed is every wound ; 

Though many a wound they gave. Some heavenly care, 

Some hand divine, preserves him ever fair : 

Or all the host of heaven, to whom he led 515 

A life so grateful, still regard him dead." 

Thus spoke to Priam the celestial guide, 
And joyful thus the royal sire replied : 
" Bless'd is the man who pays the gods above 
The constant tribute of respect and love ! 520 

Those who inhabit the Olympian bower 
My son forgot not, in exalted power ; 
And Heaven, that every virtue bears in mind, 
E'en to the ashes of the dust is kind. 
But thou, oh generous youth ! this goblet take, 525 

A pledge of gratitude for Hector's sake ; 
And while the favouring gods our steps survey, 
Safe to Pelides' tent conduct my way." 

To whom the latent god : " O king, forbear 
To tempt my youth, for apt is youth to err ; 530 

But can I, absent from my prince's sight, 
Take gifts in secret, that must shun the light? 
What from our master's interest thus we draw, 
Is but a licens'd theft that 'scapes the law. 
Respecting him, my soul abjures th' offence ; 535 

And, as the crime, I dread the consequence. 
Thee, far as Argos, pleas'd I could convey \ 
Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way : 
On thee attend, thy safety to maintain, 
O'er pathless forests, or the roaring main." 540 

He said, then took the chariot at a bound, 



9 o THE ILIAD. 

And snatch'd the reins, and whirl'd the lash around : 

Before th' inspiring god that urged them on 

The coursers fly, with spirit not their own. 

And now they reach'd the naval walls, and found 545 

The guards repasting, while the bowls go round : 

On these the virtue of his wand he tries, 

And pours deep slumber on their watchful eyes : 

Then heav'd the massy gates, remov'd the bars, 

And o'er the trenches led the rolling cars. 550 

Unseen, through all the hostile camp tjiey went, 

And now approach'd Pelides' lofty tent. 

Of fir the roof was raised, and cover'd o'er 

With reeds collected from the marshy shore ; 

And, fenced with palisades, a hall of state, 555 

(The work of soldiers,) where the hero sat. 

Large was the door, whose well-compacted strength 

A solid pine tree barr'd of wondrous length ; 

Scarce three strong Greeks could lift its mighty weight, 

But great Achilles singly closed the gate. 560 

This Hermes (such the power of gods) set wide ; 

Then swift alighted the celestial guide, 

And thus, reveal'd : " Hear, prince ! and understand 

Thou ow'st thy guidance to no mortal hand ; 

Hermes I am, descended from above, 565 

The king of arts, the messenger of Jove. 

Farewell : to shun Achilles' sight I fly ; 

Uncommon are such favours of the sky, 

Nor stand confess'd to frail mortality. 

Now fearless enter, and prefer thy prayers ; 570 

Adjure him by his father's silver hairs, 

His son, his mother 1 urge him to bestow 



BOOK XXIV. 91 

Whatever pity that stern heart can know." 

Thus having said, he vanish'd from his eyes, 
And in a moment shot into the skies : 575 

The king, confirm'd from heaven, alighted there, 
And left his aged herald on the car. 
With solemn pace through various rooms he went, 
And found Achilles in his inner tent : 
There sat the hero ; Alcimus the brave, 580 

And great Automedon, attendance gave ; 
These served his person at the royal feast ; 
Around, at awful distance, stood the rest. 

Unseen by these, the king his entry made ; 
And, prostrate now before Achilles laid, 585 

Sudden (a venerable sight !) appears ; 
Embraced his knees, and bath'd his hands in tears ; 
Those direful hands his kisses press'd, imbrued 
E'en with the best, the dearest of his blood ! 

As when a wretch (who, conscious of his crime, 590 
Pursued for murder, flies his native clime) 
Just gains some frontier, breathless, pale, amaz'd ! 
All gaze, all wonder : thus Achilles gaz'd : 
Thus stood th' attendants stupid with surprise : 
All mute, yet seem'd to question with their eyes : 595 

Each look'd on other, none the silence broke, 
Till thus at last the kingly suppliant spoke : 

" Ah think, thou favour'd of the powers divine ! 
Think of thy father's age, and pity mine ! 
In me, that father's reverend image trace, 600 

Those silver hairs, that venerable face; 
His trembling limbs, his helpless person, see ! 
In all my equal, but in misery ! 



92 THE ILIAD. 

Yet now, perhaps, some turn of human fate 
Expels him helpless from his peaceful state ; 605 

Think, from some powerful foe thou see'st him fly, 
And beg protection with a feeble cry. 
Yet still one comfort in his soul may rise ; 
He hears his son still lives to glad his eyes ; 
And, hearing, still may hope a better day 610 

May send him thee, to chase that foe away. 
No comfort to my griefs, no hopes remain, 
The best, the bravest of my sons are slain ! 
Yet what a race ! ere Greece to Ilion came, 
The pledge of many a lov'd and loving dame ! 615 

Nineteen one mother bore — Dead, all are dead ! 
How oft, alas ! has wretched Priam bled ! 
Still one was left, their loss to recompense ; 
His father's hope, his country's last defence. 
Him too thy rage has slain ! beneath thy steel, 620 

Unhappy, in his country's cause, he fell ! 
For him through hostile camps I bent my way, 
For him thus prostrate at thy feet I lay ; 
Large gifts, proportion'd to thy wrath, I bear : 
Oh, hear the wretched, and the gods revere ! 625 

Think of thy father, and this face behold ! 
See him in me, as helpless and as old ; 
Though not so wretched : there he yields to me, 
The first of men in sovereign misery. 
Thus forced to kneel, thus grovelling to embrace, 630 

The scourge and ruin of my realm and race : 
Suppliant my children's murderer to implore, 
And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore ! " 
These words soft pity in the chief inspire, 



BOOK XXIV. 93 

Touch'd with the dear remembrance of his sire. 635 

Then with his hand (as prostrate still he lay) 

The old man's cheek he gently turn'd away, 

Now each by turns indulged the gush of woe ; 

And now the mingled tides together flow : 

This low on earth, that gently bending o'er, 640 

A father one, and one a son deplore : 

But great Achilles different passions rend, 

And now his sire he mourns, and now his friend. 

Th' infectious softness through the heroes ran ; 

One universal solemn shower began ; 645 

They bore as heroes, but they felt as man. 

Satiate at length with unavailing woes, 
From the high throne divine Achilles rose ; 
The reverend monarch by the hand he rais'd ; 
On his white beard and form majestic gaz'd, 650 

Not unrelenting : then serene began 
With words to soothe the miserable man : 

" Alas ! what weight of anguish hast thou known, 
Unhappy prince ! thus guardless and alone 
To pass through foes, and thus undaunted face 655 

The man whose fury has destroy'd thy race ! 
Heaven sure has arm'd thee with a heart of steel, 
A strength proportion'd to the woes you feel. 
Rise then : let reason mitigate our care : 
To mourn, avails not : man is born to bear. 660 

Such is, alas ! the gods' severe decree ; 
They, only they, are blest, and only free. 
Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood, 
The source of evil one, and one of good ; 
From thence the cup of mortal man he fills, 665 



94 THE ILIAD. 

Blessings to these, to those distributes ills; 
To most he mingles both : the wretch decreed 
To taste the bad, unmix'd, is curs'd indeed : 
Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven, 
He wanders, outcast both of earth and heaven. 670 

The happiest taste not happiness sincere, 
But find the cordial draught is dash'd with care. 
Who more than Peleus shone in wealth and power? 
What stars concurring bless'd his natai hour ! 
A realm, a goddess, to his wishes given, 675 

Graced by the gods with all the gifts of heaven ! 
One evil, yet, o'ertakes his latest day ; 
No race succeeding to imperial sway : 
An only son ! and he (alas !) ordain'd 
To fall untimely in a foreign land ! 680 

See him, in Troy, the pious care decline 
Of his weak age, to live the curse of thine ! 
Thou too, old man, hast happier days beheld ; 
In riches once, in children once excell'd ; 
Extended Phrygia own'd thy ample reign, 685 

And all fair Lesbos' blissful seats contain, 
And all wide Hellespont's unmeasur'd main. 
But since the god his hand has pleas'd to turn, 
And fill thy measure from his bitter urn, 
What sees the sun, but hapless heroes' falls ? 690 

War, and the blood of men, surround thy walls ! 
What must be, must be. Bear thy lot, nor shed 
These unavailing sorrows o'er the dead ; 
Thou canst not call him from the Stygian shore, 
But thou, alas ! may'st live to suffer more ! " 695 

To whom the king : " O favour'd of the skies ! 



BOOK XXIV. 



95 



Here let me grow to earth ! since Hector lies 
On the bare beach, depriv'd of obsequies. 

give me Hector : to my eyes restore 

His corse, and take the gifts : I ask no more ! 700 

Thou, as thou may'st, these boundless stores enjoy ; 
Safe may'st thou sail, and turn thy wrath from Troy ; 
So shall thy pity and forbearance give 
A weak old man to see the light, and live ! " 

" Move me no more," (Achilles thus replies, 705 

While kindling anger sparkled in his eyes,) 
" Nor seek by tears my steady soul to bend ; 
To yield thy Hector I myself intend : 
For know, from Jove my goddess-mother came ; 
(Old Ocean's daughter, silver-footed dame ;) 710 

Nor com'st thou but by heaven ; nor com'st alone ; 
Some god impels with courage not thy own : 
No human hand the weighty gates unbarr'd, 
Nor could the boldest of our youth have dar'd 
To pass our out- works, or elude the guard. 715 

Cease ; lest, neglectful of high Jove's command, 

1 shew thee, king ! thou tread'st on hostile land ; 
Release my knees, thy suppliant arts give o'er, 
And shake the purpose of my soul no more." 

The sire obey'd him, trembling and o'eraw'd. 720 

Achilles, like a lion, rush'd abroad ; 
Automedon and Alcimus attend, 
Whom most he honour' d, since he lost his friend ; 
These to unyoke the mules and horses went, 
And led the hoary herald to the tent : 725 

Next, heap'd on high, the numerous presents bear 
(Great Hector's ransom) from the polish'd car. 



96 THE ILIAD. 

Two splendid mantles, and a carpet spread, 

They leave, to cover and enwrap the dead : 

Then call the handmaids, with assistant toil 730 

To wash the body, and anoint with oil, 

Apart from Priam ; lest th' unhappy sire, 

Provok'd to passion, once more rouse to ire 

The stern Pelides ; and nor sacred age, 

Nor Jove's command, should check the rising rage. 735 

This done, the garments o'er the corse they spread ; 

Achilles lifts it to the funeral bed : 

Then, while the body on the car they laid, 

He groans, and calls on lov'd Patroclus' shade : 

" If, in that gloom which never light must know, 740 

The deeds of mortals touch the ghosts below ; 

O friend ! forgive me that I thus fulfil 
(Restoring Hector) heaven's unquestion'd will. 

The gifts the father gave, be ever thine, 

To grace thy manes, and adorn thy shrine." 745 

He said, and, entering, took his seat of state, 

Where full before him reverend Priam sate : 

To whom, compos'd, the godlike chief begun : 

" Lo ! to thy prayer restor'd, thy breathless son ; 

Extended on the funeral couch he lies 750 

And, soon as morning paints the eastern skies, 

The sight is granted to thy longing eyes. 

But now the peaceful hours of sacred night 

Demand refection, and to rest invite : 

Nor thou, O father ! thus consum'd with woe, 755 

The common cares that nourish life forego. 

Not thus did Niobe, of form divine, 

A parent once, whose sorrows equall'd thine : 



BOOK XXIV. 97 

Six youthful sons, as many blooming maids, 

In one sad day beheld the Stygian shades : 760 

Those by Apollo's silver bow were slain, 

These, Cynthia's arrows stretch'd upon the plain. 

So was her pride chastis'd by wrath divine, 

Who match'd her own with bright Latona's line ; 

But two the goddess, twelve the queen enjoy 'd ; 765 

Those boasted twelve th' avenging two destroy'd. 

Steep'd in their blood, and in the dust outspread, 

Nine days, neglected, lay expos'd the dead ; 

None by to weep them, to inhume them none ; 

(For Jove had turn'd the nation all to stone ;) 770 

The gods themselves, at length, relenting, gave 

Th' unhappy race the honours of a grave. 

Herself a rock (for such was heaven's high will) 

Through deserts wild now pours a weeping rill ; 

Where round the bed whence Achelotis springs, 775 

The watery fairies dance in mazy rings : 

There, high on Sipylus's shaggy brow, 

She stands, her own sad monument of woe ; 

The rock for ever lasts, the tears for ever flow. 

Such griefs, O king ! have other parents known : 780 

Remember theirs, and mitigate thy own. 

The care of heaven thy Hector has appear'd ; 

Nor shall he lie unwept, and uninterr'd ; 

Soon may thy aged cheeks in tears be drown'd, 

And all the eyes of Ilion stream around." 785 

He said, and, rising, chose the victim ewe 
With silver fleece, which his attendants slew. 
The limbs they sever from the reeking hide, 
With skill prepare them, and in parts divide : 



98 THE ILIAD. 

Each on the coals the separate morsels lays, 790 

And hasty snatches from the rising blaze. 

With bread the glittering canisters they load, 

Which round the board Automedon bestow'd : 

The chief himself to each his portion placed, 

And each indulging shar'd in sweet repast. 795 

When now the rage of hunger was repress'd, 

The wondering hero eyes his royal guest ; 

No less the royal guest the hero eyes, 

His godlike aspect, and majestic size; 

Here, youthful grace and noble fire engage, 800 

And there, the mild benevolence of age. 

Thus gazing long, the silence neither broke ; 

(A solemn scene !) at length the father spoke : 

" Permit me now, belov'd of Jove, to steep 
My careful temples in the dew of sleep : 805 

For since the day that number'd with the dead 
My hapless son, the dust has been my bed ; 
Soft sleep a stranger to my weeping eyes ; 
My only food, my sorrows and my sighs 1 
Till now, encourag'd by the grace you give, 810 

I share thy banquet, and consent to live." 

With that, Achilles bade prepare the bed, 
With purple soft, and shaggy carpets spread. 
Forth, by the flaming lights, they bend their way, 
And place the couches, and the coverings lay. 815 

Then he : " Now, father, sleep, but sleep not here, 
Consult thy safety, and forgive my fear 
Lest any Argive, (at this hour awake, 
To ask our counsel, or our orders take,) 
Approaching sudden to our open'd tent, 820 



BOOK XXIV. 99 

Perchance behold thee, and our grace prevent. 

Should such report thy honour'd person here, 

The king of men the ransom might defer. 

But say with speed, if aught of thy desire 

Remains unask'd, what time the rites require 825 

T' inter thy Hector ? For so long we stay 

Our slaughtering arm, and bid the hosts obey." 

" If then thy will permit," (the monarch said,) 
" To finish all due honours to the dead, 
This, of thy grace, accord : to thee are known 830 

The fears of Ilion, clos'd within her town ; 
And at what distance from our walls aspire 
The hills of Ide, and forests for the fire. 
Nine days to vent our sorrows I request, 
The tenth shall see the funeral and the feast ; 835 

The next, to raise his monument be given ; 
The twelfth we war, if war be doom'd by heaven ! " 

" This thy request," (replied the chief,) " enjoy : 
Till then, our arms suspend the fall of Troy." 

Then gave his hand at parting, to prevent 840 

The old man's fears, and turn'd within the tent ; 
Where fair Briseis, bright in blooming charms, 
Expects her hero with desiring arms. 
But in the porch the king and herald rest, 
Sad dreams of care yet wandering in their breast. 845 

Now gods and men the gifts of sleep partake ; 
Industrious Hermes only was awake, 
The king's return revolving in his mind, 
To pass the ramparts, and the watch to blind. 
The power descending hover'd o'er his head, 850 

And, " Sleep'st thou, father? " (thus the vision said :) 

<L« &f C. 



ioo THE ILIAD. 

" Now dost thou sleep, when Hector is restor'd? 

Nor fear the Grecian foes, or Grecian lord ? 

Thy presence here should stern Atrides see, 

Thy still-surviving sons may sue for thee ; 855 

May offer all thy treasures yet contain, 

To spare thy age ; and offer all in vain." 

Wak'd with the word, the trembling sire arose, 
And rais'd his friend : the god before him goes : 
He joins the mules, directs them with his hand, 860 

And moves in silence through the hostile land. 

When now to Xanthus' yellow stream they drove, 
(Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove,) 
The winged deity forsook their view, 
And in a moment to Olympus flew. 865 

Now shed Aurora round her saffron ray, 
Sprung through the gates of light, and gave the day. 
Charged with their mournful load to Ilion go 
The sage and king, majestically slow. 
Cassandra first beholds, from Ilion's spire 870 

The sad procession of her hoary sire ; 
Then, as the pensive pomp advanced more near, 
(Her breathless brother stretch'd upon the bier,) 
A shower of tears o'erflows her beauteous eyes, 
Alarming thus all Ilion with her cries : 875 

" Turn here your steps, and here your eyes employ, 
Ye wretched daughters, and ye sons of Troy ! 
If e'er ye rush'd in crowds, with vast delight, 
To hail your hero glorious from the fight ; 
Now meet him dead, and let your sorrows flow ! 880 

Your common triumph, and your common woe." 

In thronging crowds they issue to the plains^ 



BOOK XXIV. 101 

Nor man, nor woman, in the walls remains : 

In every face the self-same grief is shewn, 

And Troy sends forth one universal groan. . 885 

At Scaea's gates, they meet the mourning wain, 

Hang on the wheels, and grovel round the slain. 

The wife and mother, frantic with despair, 

Kiss his pale cheek, and rend their scatter'd hair ; 

Thus wildly wailing, at the gates they lay ; 890 

And there had sigh'd and sorrow'd out the day ; 

But godlike Priam from the chariot rose ; 

" Forbear," (he cried) " this violence of woes ; 

First to the palace let the car proceed, 

Then pour your boundless sorrows o'er the dead." 895 

The waves of people at his word divide ; 
Slow rolls the chariot through the following tide : 
E'en to the palace the sad pomp they wait : 
They weep, and place him on the bed of state. 
A melancholy choir attend around, 900 

With plaintive sighs and music's solemn sound : 
Alternately they sing, alternate flow 
Th' obedient tears, melodious in their woe ; 
While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart, 
And nature speaks at every pause of art. 905 

First to the corse the weeping consort flew ; 
Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw : 
And, " Oh my Hector ! oh my lord ! " she cries, 
" Snatch'd in thy bloom from these desiring eyes ! 
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone ! 910 

And I abandon'd, desolate, alone ! 
An only son, once comfort of our pains, 
Sad product now of hapless love, remains ! 



102 THE ILIAD. 

Never to manly age that son shall rise, 

Or with increasing graces glad my eyes ; 915 

For Ilion now (her great defender slain) 

Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain. 

Who now protects her wives with guardian care ? 

Who saves her infants from the rage of war ? 

Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er 920 

(Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore ! 

Thou too, my son ! to barbarous climes shalt go, 

The sad companion of thy mother's woe ; 

Driven hence a slave before the victor's sword, 

Condemn'd to toil for some inhuman lord : 925 

Or else some Greek, whose father press'd the plain, 

Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain, 

In Hector's blood his vengeance shall enjoy, 

And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy. 

For thy stern father never spar'd a foe : 930 

Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe ! 

Thence, many evils his sad parents bore, 

His parents many, but his consort more. 

Why gav'st thou not to me thy dying hand ? 

And why receiv'd not I thy last command? 935 

Some word thou would'st have spoke, which, sadly dear, 

My soul might keep, or utter with a tear ; 

Which never, never could be lost in air, 

Fix'd in my heart, and oft repeated there ! " 

Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan ; 940 
Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan. 

The mournful mother next sustains her part : 
" O thou, the best, the dearest to my heart ! 
Of all my race thou most by heaven approv'd, 



BOOK XXIV. 103 

And by th' immortals ev'n in death belov'd ! 945 

While all my other sons in barbarous bands 

Achilles bound, and sold to foreign lands, 

This felt no chains, but went, a glorious ghost, 

Free, and a hero, to the Stygian coast. 

Sentenced, 'tis true, by his inhuman doom, 950 

Thy noble corse was dragg'd around the tomb ; 

(The tomb of him thy warlike arm had slain ;) 

Ungenerous insult, impotent and vain ! 

Yet glow'st thou fresh with every living grace, 

No mark of pain, or violence of face ; 955 

Rosy and fair ! as Phoebus' silver bow 

Dismiss'd thee gently to the shades below ! " 

Thus spoke the dame, and melted into tears. 
Sad Helen next in pomp of grief appears : 
Fast from the shining sluices of her eyes 960 

Fall the round crystal drops, while thus she cries : 
"Ah, dearest friend ! in whom the gods had join'd 
The mildest manners with the bravest mind ! 
Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o'er 
Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore ; 965 

(Oh, had I perish'd, ere that form divine 
Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine !) 
Yet was it ne'er my fate from thee to find 
A deed ungentle, or a word unkind : 
When others curs'd the authoress of their woe, 970 

Thy pity check'd my sorrows in their flow : 
If some proud brother eyed me with disdain, 
Or scornful sister with her sweeping train, 
Thy gentle accents soften'd all my pain. 
For thee I mourn ; and mourn myself in thee, 975 



104 THE ILIAD. 

The wretched source of all this misery ! 

The fate I caus'd, for ever I bemoan ; 

Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone ! 

Through Troy's wide streets abandoned shall I roam, 

In Troy deserted, as abhorr'd at home ! " 9 8o 

So spoke the fair, with sorrow-streaming eye : 
Distressful beauty melts each stander-by ; 
On all around th' infectious sorr.ow grows ; 
But Priam check'd the torrent as it rose : 
" Perform, ye Trojans ! what the rites require, 985 

And fell the forests for a funeral pyre ! 
Twelve days nor foes nor secret ambush dread ; 
Achilles grants these honours to the dead." 

He spoke ; and at his word the Trojan train 
Their mules and oxen harness to the wain, 990 

Pour through the gates, and, fell'd from Ida's crown, 
Roll back the gather'd forests to the town. 
These toils continue nine succeeding days, 
And high in air a sylvan structure raise. 
But when the tenth fair morn began to shine 995 

Forth to the pile was borne the man divine, 
And placed aloft : while all, with streaming eyes, 
Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise. 

Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn, 
With rosy lustre streak'd the dewy lawn, 1000 

Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre, 
And quench with wine the yet-remaining fire. 
The snowy bones his friends and brothers place 
(With tears collected) in a golden vase ; 
The golden vase in purple palls they roll'd, 1005 

Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold. 



BOOK XXIV. 105 

Last, o'er the urn the sacred earth they spread, 
And rais'd the tomb, memorial of the dead. 
(Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done, 
Watch'd from the rising to the setting sun.) 1010 

All Troy then moves to Priam's court again, 
A solemn, silent, melancholy train : 
Assembled there, from pious toil they rest, 
And sadly shar'd the last sepulchral feast. 

Such honours Ilion to her hero paid, 1015 

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade. 



NOTES. 



BOOK I. 

Iliad : cf. Intr. p. xiii. 

i. wrath : Intr. p. xii. Greece : Intr. 4. d. Cf. Arnold, on 
trans. H. p. 206. 

2. Goddess: the muse. Cf. Milton, P. L. 1. 6, "Sing, Heavenly 
Muse"; Odyssey, 1. 1, "Tell me, O muse, of the man." Homer 
knows the Muses as daughters of Zeus, but he does not mention 
Mnemosyne as their mother, nor know them as " nine," except in 
the late passage, Odyssey, 24. 60. 

3. Pluto's gloomy reign.: Intr. p. xxv. (1) cf. Virg. ^.n. 8. 
244, regno, . . .pallida, regnum — kingdom. So "watery reign," 
1. 469; " Sirius' sultry reign ; " "the reign of chaos and old night," 
P. L. I. 543; " Ceres' golden reign " = fields of grain, etc., Gray. 

4. untimely: the original has "hurled forward" or down, 
which Pope mistook for " hurled before their time." 

5. naked shore: cf. 1. 472; 22.125; 2 4-499- Cf. " Sea-beaten 
rocks and naked shores | Could yield them no retreat." Cowper, 
Bird's Nest. 

8. An "Alexandrine " line; cf. Intr. 6. c. 

9. Declare, Muse : Pope is following not Homer but Virgil 
jEn. I. 8. Musa mihi causas memora. Cf. Intr. 1. b. 

10. offended power : again Virgil, quo numine Ice so. 

11. Latona's son : Apollo, whose shafts sent pestilence. 

12. mountains of the dead: cf. 1. 320; the hyberbole is un- 
Homeric. 

13. The king of men: Homer says the son of Atreus, i.e. 
Agamemnon. Cf. Arnold, 207; " Milton says : — 

107 



io8 NOTES. 

' O for that warning voice, which he, who saw 
The Apocalypse, heard cry in heaven aloud.' 

. . . Homer would have said ' O for that warning voice which John 
heard,' — and if it had suited him to say that John also saw the 
Apocalypse, he would have given us that in another sentence." 

13. reverend priest: in H. Chryses the priest. 

14. Cf. Intr. 4. b. 

17. stands: cf. Intr. 5. b. 

18. awful ensigns : " a chaplet of wool, his symbol as priest of 
Apollo, which as a suppliant he does not wear, but carries on his 
staff" (sceptre 20). The "laurel," 20, is added by Pope after 
Dryden, 1. 22. 

22. brother-kings : Menelaus and Agamemnon. 

26. Safe to the pleasures : added by Pope. So " if mercy 
fail," 29. 

28. Chryseis: the captive daughter; cf. 1. 16. 

32. "the fair": eighteenth-century "poetical slang," like 
" fairest of her sex " and " brightest of the female kind." Cf. Intr. 
p. xxiii. 

35. Hence on thy life : so Dryden, 1. 45. 

36. what the king detains: i.e. the girl whom I, the king, 
detain. 

40. Cf. 1. 509. 

41-42. In H. simply "till old age come upon her." 

44. Antithesis not in Homer. 

45. Argos generally means the Peloponnesus in Homer. Aga- 
memnon was king of Mycenae, not of the city Argos. 

49. anguish of a father : decorative addition. 

52. The god who darts : Homer does not explicitly identify 
Apollo with the sun god. Cf. 55-56. 

53. Smintheus : probably " destroyer of mice," from sminthos, 
a mouse. Andrew Lang once amused himself by arguing that 
Apollo was originally an animal god — a mouse totem. 

54. Cilia : a town of the Troad. Tenedos, an island off the coast 
in sight of Troy and the camp. Chrysa, a town of the Troad. 

55. source of light : so Dryden, who explicitly says " sun." 



BOOK I. 109 

56. gilds: "gild is a perfect ear-mark of eighteenth-century 
descriptive verse ; the shore is gilded, and so are groves, clouds," 
etc. — Beers, English Romanticism, p. 58. 

57-60. If e'er, etc. : the usual formula of Homeric and primitive 
prayer, reminding the god of past services and asking for a return. 
— with wreaths, etc. : in H. " roofed "; the fane was perhaps only 
a sylvan roof over a rude image. There are few temples in Homer. 
Cf. 6. 371 sqq. 

61. power: cf. 1. 10 ; Intr. p. xxv. 

62. Olympus : mountain of Thessaly, mythic abode of the gods. 
The mountain towering into the clouds and the heavens themselves 
are not always clearly distinguished. In the Odyssey Olympus is 
rather "heaven " than the mere mountain. Cf. Jebb, p. 52. 

63-68. Lessing in his Laocoon, XIII, quotes this passage to 
illustrate the superiority of poetry over painting in the description 
of life and action. "I not only see him descend, I hear him," etc. 

65. a sudden night: in H. "and he descended like night." 
This and 1. 644, "like the mist," are the only similes in the first 
book of the Iliad — both short. 

67. twang'd his deadly bow : Cowper strives not very success- 
fully to reproduce the suiting of the sound to the sense in the 
original, " dread sounding bounding on the silver bow." 

68. feathered fates : from Dryden, 1. 74 ; cf. Intr. 4. d. So in 
Windsor Forest, " the clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death " — 
bullets. 

71. Nine is a conventional poetic round number in H. Cf. 6. 
214-215 ; 24. 768. 

74. Juno : Hera, wife of Zeus, partisan of the Greeks. Intr. 
p. viii. 

75. council: the agora or general assembly of freemen fore- 
shadowing our " lower house," as the Boule or council of chiefs was 
the germ of senates and upper houses, while the commander-in- 
chief Agamemnon, with ill-defined powers, represents the king, 
president, or chief executive. Cf. Jebb, p. 49. — Grecian train : 
so Trojan train, female train, attendant tram, ethereal train, hostile 
train, pious train, menial train, starry train, a train in tears, etc. 



no NOTES. 

82. remains of war: Virgil's reliquias Danaum, sEn. 1. 30. 
"The people which were left of the sword," Jeremiah 31. 2. 

83. prophet, etc.; the original distinguishes: (1) soothsayer, 
who would accompany the army; (2) priest, attached to a particu- 
lar shrine; (3) professional interpreter of dreams, mentioned only 
here. 

85. wasteful: destructive; cf. 1. 596; 6. 119. 

86. Cf. Milton, P. Z., " For God is also in sleep and dreams 
advise." 

88. hecatombs: offering of hundred oxen; then any offering. 

89. heaven: Intr. 4. d. — atoned: i.e. at-one-ed, propitiated. 
Cf. Shaks. Ant. and Chop. 2. 2 : " the present need | Speaks to atone 
you." 

95. Uprising slow : Intr. 2. d. 

96. Intr. 4. d. 

107. To whom Pelides : Homer always introduces a speech by 
a whole line, and never omits the verb of saying. Intr. 5. e. — Pe- 
lides : son of Peleus, i.e. Achilles. 

108. and speak without control : from Dryden, 129. 

109. Cf. 52. n. 

112. vital air: so Dryden, 131 ; Intr. I. b. Rape of the Lock, 
4. 137. " While my nostrils draw the vital air." 

116. king of kings : "Agamemnon," which is not fine enough 
for Pope. 

119-120. pest . . . priest: Intr. 6. a. 

126. Intr. 4. b. 

128. shining throne : is not in Homer. The next ten lines are 
freely but vigorously rendered. 

143. Clytsemnestra : wife of Agamemnon, mother of Orestes and 
Iphigenia. 

144. blooming beauties : Intr. 4. a. and 1. d ; 24. 842. Dryden, 
I. 169, "in beauty's bloom." 

145. let her sail : for sake of rhyme ; in H. " I am ready to give 
her back." 

151. the fair: Intr. p. xxiii. 
156 and 160. Cf. Intr. 4. b. 



BOOK I. in 

175. or . . .or: i.e. either ... or, as often. 

182. plough the watery plains : in H. " launch a ship on the 
great sea." The metaphor " plough," etc., is not in Homer, but Virgil 
has it, ALn. 2. 780. Cf. Intr. 4. c. 

184. laboring oars : a Latinism frequent in Dryden's Virgil. 

185. sable: Pope rarely deigns to use "black." 
187. Creta's king : Idomeneus. So Dryden, 1. 219. 

194. "armed with insolence": in H. "clothed in shameless- 
ness." 

195-196. joined . . . mind: Intr. 6. a. 

198. ambush: cf. 299 n. 

200-206 : Pope fails in this picturesque passage. Cf. Intr. p. xxv. 
In H. " not by reason of the Trojan spearmen came I hither to fight, 
for they have not wronged me : never did they harry mine oxen nor 
my horses, nor ever waste my harvest in deep-soiled Phthia, the 
nurse of men; seeing there lieth between us long space of shadowy 
mountain and resounding sea." Chapman has : " hills enow, and 
far resounding seas, | Pour out their shades and deeps between." 
Cf. further Scott, Lay of Last Minstrel, 4. 6 : "I had him long at 
high despite; | He drove my cows last Fastness night." 

204. native reign: Cf. Milton, P. L. 2. 76, "native seat"; infra 
1. 335 and 6. 541. 

208. In H. "to win vengeance, for Menelaus and thee." So in 
Achilles's great speech in the ninth book he asks : " But why must the 
Argives make war on the Trojans? Why hath Atreides gathered 
his host and led them hither? is it not for lovely -haired Helen's 
sake? Do then the sons of Atreus alone of mortal men love their 
wives?" 

215-216. This clever conceit is Pope's. Cf. Intr. 3. a. 

222. Thessalia : in H. " to Phthia," a district of what was later 
Thessaly, a word unknown to H. 

225. This speech is rendered freely but vigorously with many 
un-Homeric antitheses and rhetorical touches. 

239. Myrmidons : the subjects of Peleus and Achilles, according 
to legend, born of ants on the island of ^Egina. Dryden actually 
renders, " and there thy ant-born Myrmidons command." From this 



ii2 NOTES. 

passage of Pope Myrmidons in English suggests " henchmen," " hire- 
lings," etc. 

246. Briseis = daughter of Briseus, the only name used for her by 
Homer. Achilles had slain her husband and three brothers and 
made her a " captive fair " at the sack of Lyrnessus. In the nineteenth 
book, when Agamemnon restores her, she utters a pathetic lament 
over the body of Patroclus, whom she finds slain on her return. 
Landor says playfully of Achilles: "Never night or day could be 
his I Dignity hurt by dear Briseis." 

250. kings are subject, etc. : Pope is thinking not of Homer, 
but of Horace, Odes, 3. 1. 5; Intr. 3. c. 

262. I.e. Hera or Juno. 

264. and by the golden hair : a favorite scene with poets. Cf. 
Keats, Hyperion . " She would have ta'en | Achilles by the hair and 
bent his neck; | Or with a finger stayed Ixion's wheel." Mrs. Brown- 
ing, Sonnets fro?n the Portuguese ■, 1 : " a mystic shape did move | 
Behind me and drew me backward by the hair." Swinburne, 
Tiresias : " Lo thy sure hour shall take thee by the hair." Ruskin, 
Queen of the Air, 37 : "There is an exquisite tenderness in this lay- 
ing her hand upon his hair, for it is the talisman of his life, vowed 
to his own Thessalian river if he ever returned to its shore, and cast 
upon Patroclus's pile, so ordaining that there should be no return." 

265. to him alone confessed : the gods in H. generally appear 
to one person only. Pope adds the cloud. " Confessed " is after 
Virgil and Dryden. Cf. 22. 14; ^En. 2. 591, confessa dedm. 

269. Descends Minerva : Intr. 5. c. 

276. To reason yield : this touch, added by Pope, suggests that 
Athena is only an allegory of wisdom. Intr. 2. b. Leslie Stephen, 
Pope, p. 68 : " Pope does not feel that he is diverging from the 
spirit of the old mythology when he regards the gods, not as the 
spontaneous growth of the primitive imagination, but as deliberate 
contrivances intended to convey moral truth in allegorical fables." 
Ruskin, however, allegorizes without losing the poetry : " Through- 
out the Iliad, Athena is herself the will or menis of Achilles. If he 
is to be calmed, it is she who calms him; if angered, it is she who 
inflames him." Hegel says that in Homer the action of the gods 



BOOK I. 113 

is so contrived as to seem to come at the same time from within 
and from without. 

291, 294. blue-eyed maid . . . sacred senate: cf. Intr. 4. a; 1. 
d; Dryden, 331, " senate of the gods." 

297. In H. "Thou heavy with wine, thou with face of dog and 
heart of deer." 

299. ambushed : the ambush was looked upon as the supreme 
test of courage. Cf. //. 13. 276 : " Nay, if now ... all the best of us 
were being chosen for an ambush — wherein the valour of men is 
best discerned." 

300. horrid front: Intr. 1. a. Milton, P. L. 1. 563: "a horrid 
front I Of dreadful length and dazzling arms." 

301. fighting fields: frequent in Chapman, Dryden, etc. 

309. sceptre : the herald's staff, put in the hands of the speaker 
to show that he " had the floor." Cf. Dryden's version of A. 12. 
206 : " Even as this royal sceptre (for he bore | A sceptre in his 
hand) shall never more | Shoot out in branches, or renew the birth 
I (An orphan now, cut from the mother earth | By the keen axe, 
dishonoured of its hair, | And cased in brass, for Latian kings to 
bear)." Pope parodies in Rape of the Lock, 4. 133 : — 

" But by this lock, this sacred lock I swear, 
Which never more shall join its parted hair ; 
Which never more its honors shall renew, 
Clipped from the lovely head where late it grew." 

311. as I from thee: Intr. 3. a. 

314-315. In H. " and now the sons of the Achaians that exercise 
judgment bear it in their hands, even they that by Zeus' command 
watch over the traditions." Cf. Jebb, p. 48. 

320. Cf. 12. n. 

328. Dryden adds, " and foam betwixt his gnashing grinders 
churned." 

330. Pylian : of Pylos on southwest coast of Peloponnesus. 

332. Words sweet as honey : Cf. Spenser, Faery Queene, 2. 3. 
24 : " And, when she spake, | Sweet words like dropping honey she 
did shed." 



U4 NOTES. 

341. commit : Intr. 1. a. — stern debate : 1. 400; 22. 324. Dry- 
den, 1. 10. 

351 sqq. Very free. 

353. virtuous envy : i.e. emulation, not in H. 

354. smit with love : Virgil's percussus amove, Georgics, 2. 476; 
cf. Milton's " smit with the love of sacred song." 

357. Centaurs: in H. wild beasts, "wild tribes of the mountain 
caves." Homer speaks of Cheiron justest of the Centaurs who edu- 
cated Achilles, but he does not know the Centaurs as half-horse 
half man. 

371. Added by Pope. Intr. 3. c. 

373. Intr. 3. b. 

383. Intr. 3. c. 

385. privilege: privilegium, a law in favor of (or against) an 
individual. 

388. galling chain : Intr. 4. c. 

394. secure: Intr. 1. a., "Men may securely sin, but safely 
never." — no more Achilles draws, etc.: the clever epigram is 
not in H., though suggested by the speech quoted on line 208. 
Intr. 3. a. 

401. Intr. 2. d. 

407. Intr. 1. a. Milton, P. L. 1. 130 : "That led the embattled 
Seraphim to war | Under thy conduct." 

410. expiate: Intr. I. a. 

412. pious train: cf. 75. n. 

417. grateful: added in imitation of Latin poets' use of gratus, 
acceptable. Cf. 6. 383; 22. 225. Dryden has "and clouds of 
savoury stench involve the sky ! " 

425. ourself: royal plural. Cf. Tennyson, Princess, " were you 
sick, ourself would tend upon you." In H., "I myself." 

426. act: Intr. I. a; 22. 108. 

432. Decent confusion : Intr. 5. d. — decent: Intr. 1. a. Milton, 
" decent steps," " decent shoulders." 

435. sacred: heralds were, of course, inviolable. 

451. sorrows: tears. So Dryden often. 

457. That kindred deep: the conceit is Pope's. Intr. 3. a. 



BOOK I. 115 

461. too severe a doom: Milton has "doom severe," but Pope 
is thinking of Dryden's " Darius great and good by too severe a 
fate I Fallen." In H., " short-lived." For the thought of 460-464, 
cf. Arnold's Early Death and Fame. 

469. watery reign : cf. 1. 3. 

478. Thebe : a town of Mysia. 

483. selected: Intr. 1. a. 

484 sqq. Cf. supra, 15 sqq. Homer repeats verbatim; Pope 
modifies a phrase here and there. 

494. peculiar : own, special — a Latinism frequent in Dryden. 

499. points (to) ; derives : traces as a river from its source. 

507. Intr. 4. b. 

509. Cf. supra, 40; Intr. 4. d. 

514 sqq. This legend that the gods conspired to bind Zeus who 
was rescued by the hundred-handed monster iEgeon is a survival 
of an earlier religious age than Homer's. 

518-519. I.e. Hera, Athena, and Poseidon. Cf. Intr. 4. a. 

521. omnipotence of heaven : 2. b. 

523. The fancy that some things are named differently in the lan- 
guage of the gods occurs about five times in Homer, and has become 
a familiar literary allusion. Its precise meaning is disputed. JEgeon 
may possibly = the man of the sea. Cf. ^Egean Sea. 

526-530. Pope here expands Homer, who is not line enough for 
him. 

534. copious death : Intr. 4. d. 

537. wide dominion of the dead: added by Pope. Dryden 
(sEneid) has " waste dominion of the dead." 

541. In H., simply "weeping" ! 

544-545. short a space: Intr. 5. a. 

546. careful: full of care. So often. Cf. 22. 36; Spenser, 
F. Q., "These be unquiet thoughts that careful minds invade." 

544. ethereal train : cf. 643. Homer simply says, " Zeus and 
all the gods have gone to a banquet to the blameless swart-faces," 
but Pope's " nor disdain " softens for eighteenth-century readers 
the idea of the Deity so condescending. Intr. 2. b. 

558. genial rite : Intr. p. xxv. 



n6 NOTES. 

560. mount : mount to. So Milton and Tennyson use " arrive " 
for "arrive at." 

566. Continuing 409. rode : i.e. his ship rode. 

576. awful dome: Intr. 2. c. 

581. atoned : supra, 89. — desist to : Intr. j. a. 

583. Added by Pope. 

587. salted cake : unground barley grains, roasted and mixed 
with salt to be sprinkled on the victim. Pope is thinking of the 
salsa viola of the Latin poets. So Dryden. 

603. selected to: Intr. I. a. 

604. involved with art : Latinism for " wrapped." 

608. Intr. 1. a. So in Book XVI. " Arm, arm, Patroclus ! Lo the 
blaze aspires." 

609. instruments : in H., five-tined forks. 

614. rage of hunger was repressed : Virgil's amor compressus 
edendi, JEn. 8. 184, which Dryden renders, " But when the rage of 
hunger was repressed." 

616. crowned : i.e. filled to the brim. Virgil took it of crowning 
with flowers, ALn. 1. 724. 

622 sqq. Chapman is rather pretty : All soundly on their cables 
slept, even till the night was worn | And when the Lady of the 
light, the rosy-fingered morn, | Rose from the hills, all fresh arose, 
and to the camp retired. | Apollo with a fore-right wind their 
swelling bark inspired. | The top-mast hoisted, milk-white sails on 
his round breast they put, | The mizzens strooted with the gale, the 
ship her course did cut ! etc. 

634. navy : freq. in Pope and Dryden for " ships." 

636. nor . . . nor: so often for neither . . . nor. 

640. Twelve days : i.e. from the scene that ends in 565. 

643. ethereal powers : Milton, P. L. " Such I created all th' 
ethereal powers." 

644. like the mist : cf. on 1. 65. 

645. daughter of the sea : Thetis. 

649. props the clouds : cf. Thomson, Autumit, " Atlas, propping 
heaven as poets feign." 
655. Intr. 4. b. 



BOOK I. 117 

679. sacred honours of our head : Intr. p. xxv. So Dryden 
renders JEn. 10. 115: "The Thunderer said, | And shook the 
sacred honours of his head." Cf. Eclogues, 10. 24. This style 
culminated when vegetables were called " the honors of soups." 

683-687. Cf. Milton, P. L. 2. 353, "imd by an oath that shook 
Heaven's whole circumference, confirmed." For other parallels cf. 
Shorey on Horace, Odes, 3. 1. 8. Phidias said that his statue of 
Olympian Zeus was inspired by this passage. 

685. stamp of fate, etc.: Dryden has "stamp of heaven and 
seal of fate." 

690. shining synod: cf. 24. 130; Milton, P. L. 2. 391, "Synod 
of gods." 

696. silver-footed dame : cf. song in Milton's Comus, " By 
Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet." 

701. In vain : cf. on 22. 60. 

705-7 1 1 . Pope absurdly dignifies the wrangling of Zeus and Hera. 
Intr. 2. b. Cf. infra, 726 sqq., where Dryden's homely vigor errs 
as far the other way : " My household curse ! my lawful plague ! the 
spy I Of Jove's designs ! his other squinting eye." 

711. close recesses: 22.566. Milton, P. Z. 1. 795, "In close 
recess and secret conclave sat." 

714. Saturnius : so Jupiter, as son of Saturn, is called by Latin 
poets. 

719. close consult : cf. 6. 409. Milton has " close design," " close 
ambition," and "great consult." Dryden has "close contriver" 
here. 

731. What is, that ought to be: lit. "if this is so, it is my 
pleasure ; " but Pope makes Zeus speak the language of the Essay 
on Man, "whatever is, is right." 

753. double bowl : formerly supposed to be a vessel with cup at 
either end. Probably such a two-handled cup as is shown in 
Schuchardt's Schliemann, p. 74. 

760. Once in your cause, etc. : the original is somewhat soft- 
ened by Pope. Intr. 2. b. Milton, P. L. 1. 740 : " and how he fell | 
From heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove | Sheer o'er the 
crystal battlements ; from morn | To noon he fell, from noon to 



n8 NOTES. 

dewy eve, | A summer's day; and with the setting sun | Dropped 
from the zenith, like a falling star, | On Lemnos, the JEge&n 
isle." Dryden has : " But with the setting sun | Pitched on my head 
at length, the Lemnian ground | Received my battered skull, the 
Sinthians healed my wound." 

769. nectared urn : Dryden has a lovely line here, " The laugh- 
ing nectar overlooked the lid." 

770. office: Intr. 1. a; 24. 294. It was the office of Ganymede 
or Hebe. Cf. Dryden : " Such fits of laughter seized the guests to 
see I The limpy god so deft at his new ministry." 

771. unextinguished : " Homeric laughter" is a familiar quota- 
tion. Cf. Mrs. Browning, Aurora Leigh, " and all true poets laugh 
unquenchabiy | Like Shakespeare and the gods." 

772. genial : anything connected with feasting, pleasure, or love 
is "genial" in eighteenth century poetry. Cf. 1. 558; 6. 270; 

24- 3- 

775. silver sound : " Music with its silver sound." Shak- 
spere, Romeo and Juliet, 4. 5. 136. 

779. In H. : " where each one had his palace made with cunning 
device by famed Hephaestos." Cf. Intr. 4. a. 



BOOK VI. 

For synopsis of plot, cf. Intr. p. x. 

4. tide of combat : Intr. 4. c. 

5. famed streams : in H., Xanthus and Simois. 

6. run purple: Milton, P. L. 1. 451, "ran purple to the sea." 
10. giant : i.e. Acamas. 

14. swimming eyes : not in H. cf. 22. 598; frequent in Dryden. 

16. Axylus. 

1 7. Arisba : town in Troas. 

19. Fast by : So Milton, P. L. 1. 12, " Fast by the oracle of God." 
28. Naiad: fountain nymph. Cf. 531, mountain nymphs. 
Dryads and hamadryads are unknown to Homer. 
32. Cf. 22. 538. 



BOOK VI. 119 

35-44. Astyalus, Pidytes, Aretaon, Ablerus, Elatus, Pedasus, 

Eurypylus, Phylacus, Leitus, as the metre shows, — Nestor's son is 

Antilochus. 

45-46. In H. " Menelaus took him alive." 

54. vengeful steel : in H. " far-shadowing spear." 

62. steel well tempered : lit. " smithied iron," i.e. hard to work 

as compared with the softer copper. Persuasive is added by Pope. 
67. impotent: without self-control, 24. 53. Chapman renders 

" soft-heart." 

70. well merit : Latinism, cf. 24. 263. Milton, P. L. " amply 

have merited of me." 

74. infants : in H. " babes unborn." Intr. 2. a. 

75. Intr. 3. b. 

78. To rigid justice : in H. " advising fitly," a singular moral 
judgment to our feeling. 

91. Helenus : brother of Hector, endowed with gift of prophecy. 

93. -3£neas : Intr. p. ix. 

95. Ye generous chiefs : in H. " Oh ^Eneas and Hector." 

102. hostile train : 1.75.11. 

in. power : 1. 10. n. 

114. laboured o'er with gold: cf. 24. 284, not in H. Virgil's 
arte labor atcz vestes, ALn. 1. 639. 

115. Before the goddess' knees: on her knees. This is the 
only image explicitly mentioned in Homer. It would be of wood. 

117. atoned: 1. 89. n. 

119. wasteful: 1. 85. 

136. I.e. the allies of the Trojans. Chapman, " far-called friends." 

138. Intr. 3. a. 

144. The shield's large orb, etc. : Cf. Milton, P. L. 1. 284 : " his 
ponderous shield. . . . Behind him cast. The broad circumfer- 
ence I Hung on his shoulders like the moon." 

147. Now paused the battle : so Pope tries to soften the 
naivete of the long speeches that follow. Intr. 2. a. 

154. Where fame is reaped: the metaphor not in H. Pope 
emphasizes the idea of fame throughout more than Homer. 

158. when Minerva fires : added by Pope. In the fifth book 



120 NOTES. 

Athena abets Tydeides in wounding Ares and Aphrodite, and 
removes the cloud from his eyes that he may "know both god 
and man." 

1 60. no more : Pope adds these words, perhaps to soften the 
contradiction which some critics find between Tydeides's caution 
here and his readiness to attack the gods in the fifth book. 

161. Lycurgus : not, of course, the legislator of Sparta, but a 
mythical Thracian king represented as impiously opposing the new 
religion of Dionysus. Homer hardly alludes to Dionysus elsewhere, 
and the passage is thought an interpolation by some critics. 

164. Nyssa : a mythical sacred mountain of Bacchus (Dionysus), 
of ill-defined situation. 

165. consecrated spears : the so-called Thyrsus. 

170. blessed with endless ease: Milton, P. L. 2. 868, "The 
gods who live at ease"; Tennyson; Choric Song, "On the hills 
like gods together," careless of mankind, infra, 24. 662. 

175. fruits of earth : the gods owed their immortality to nectar 
and ambrosia. 

177. prodigal of breath: Intr. 1. d. Cf. Horace, Odes, 1. 12. 37, 
animceque magncs prodigum. " The spirit does but mean the breath," 
Tennyson. 

181. Like leaves, etc. : often quoted and imitated in Greek and 
English literature. Bacchylides, Virgil, Dante, and Milton (P. L. 1. 
302) use it of the dwellers in Hades. 

184-186. Note the artificial repetition of " successive " and the 
antithesis of " these . . . those." 

188. spacious earth: so "spacious air"; in H. "many men 
knew it." 

189. Argos: 1. 45. n. — utmost bound: lit. in the recess of 
Argos, i.e. at the Corinthian gulf. 

191. Sisyphus: in the Odyssey condemned for his guile to roll 
up hill a large stone that ever rolls back. 

193. Eph^re : old name of Corinth. Pope's metre seems to 
require Ephyre. 

197. Then mighty Prcetus : Pope tells the story obscurely: 
Antea, wife of Prcetus king of Tiryns (or Argos), loved Bellerophon, 



BOOK VI. 121 

an exile at her court. He spurned her advances, and she falsely 
accused him to Prcetus, who shrank from killing Bellerophon, but 
sent him to Lycia with a letter enjoining the Lycian king to engage 
him in dangerous enterprises. 

.202. paths of fame: like "devoted" and " relentless " youth 
belong to Pope's rhetoric. 

207. his: Bellerophon's. 

208. his : Prcetus's. 

209. devoted : cf. Milton, " to destruction sacred and devote." 

210. tablets sealed : lit. " destructive tokens." There has been 
endless debate whether this means sign, picture, syllabic, or alpha- 
betic writing not elsewhere mentioned in H. Cf. Jebb, p. 112. 

214. Nine days: 1. 71.11. 

215. orient gleamed: Intr. 1. a. In H. "rosy-fingered dawn 
appeared." 

219. Chima&ra : the only composite monster in the Iliad. H. 
has no dragons, satyrs, or mermaids. Homer does not mention the 
winged horse Pegasus, which later fable assigned to Bellerophon, 
and which the moderns have made the Muses' steed. 

223, 225. expire . . . pest: Intr. 1. a. 

225. read the skies : lit. " trusting in the signs of the gods." H. 
has no astrology. Cf. 22. 610; 24. 674. 

227. Solymaean crew : the Solymi, a Lycian tribe. 

229. Amazons : only here and ft. 3. 189, " the Amazons a match 
for men." 

234. breathless : " the blameless Bellerophon slew them all." 

236. confessed: 1. 265. n. 

242. Homer names them : Isandros, Hippolochus, and Laoda- 
meia. 

244. Sarpedon : Intr. p. ix. 

247. Aleian: means field of wandering. Milton, P. L. 7. 17: 
il Return me to my native element : | Least from this flying steed 
unrein'd, as once | Bellerophon, though from a lower clime, | Dis- 
mounted, on the Aleian field I fall [ Erroneous there to wander and 
forlorn." Cf. also " Behind me lies the broad Aleian plain | The 
loneliest plain that faces to the sky; | Across which groping with 



122 NOTES, 

increasing pain | I course forever for I cannot die." William Rufus 
Perkins, Bellerophon. 

254. honoured author : Intr. 4. a. 

269. Our ancient seat: in the style of an English country 
gentleman. In H. " in our halls." 

270. genial: 1. 772. n. 

275. pledge: the goblet; cf. 24. 288. 

276. still adorns my board : " I left it at home." Intr. 4. a. 

277. Tydeus : son of (Eneus and father of the speaker. — 
Thebe's wall : the expedition of the seven against (Boeotian) 
Thebes, in which Tydeus took part, to restore to the throne the 
elder son of CEdipus, Polyneices, expelled by his younger brother 
Eteocles. 

283. harvest : the metaphor is Pope's. 

290. Brave Glaucus, etc. : a curious example of Pope's " soften- 
ing" of the original. Intr. 2. a. H. says naively, "then Zeus took 
away his wits from Glaucus who," etc. Old Chapman, too, "alters 
this only of all Homer's original." 

293. nine oxen : coined money is unknown to H. The Latin 
pecunia is derived from pecus, cattle. A tripod was worth perhaps 
12 oxen, a female slave 4-20. — vulgar: frequent Latinism for 
cheap, common, 360; 22. 207. 

296. Meantime : continuing 146. 

297. Scaean gate : (in H. gates) and the oak tree (not beech) 
often mentioned. The " consecrated shades " not in H., perhaps 
suggested by the sacred laurel tree in j£n. 7. 60. 304-307. Cf. 
Virgil, AL11. 2. 503. In the original this is one of the chief texts for 
our knowledge of the Homeric palace, for which see J ebb, pp. 57-58. 
The "stately courts," "arched columns," and "marble structures" 
are added for dignity by Pope. Intr. 2. c. 

312. unseen of: 22.355. 

315. Intr. 4. a. 

316. strict: Intr. I. a. 

322. Bacchus : so-called metonymy by which the god is put for 
his gifts. So Ceres = bread. Homer does not use " Bacchus " or 
" Dionysus " so, but he uses Hephaestus for fire. 



BOOK VI. 123 

326. generous bowl : not in H., but like " flowing bowl " frequent 
in Pope and Dryden. 

330. Intr. 3. b. In H. simply " Bring me no honey-hearted 
wine, my lady mother, lest thou cripple me of my courage." 

335. Ill fits it me: Cf. Dry den's version of Virgil, ALn. 2. 
717: "In me 'tis impious holy things to bear, | Red as I am 
from slaughter, new from war." 

362. Sidon : one form of the legend related that Paris and 
Helen touched at Egypt and Sidon on the way to Troy. Homer 
does not mention Tyre. 

369. majestically slow : Intr. 2. d ; 24. 869. 

371. Palladian dome: the temple of Pallas Athene on the 
Acropolis; but Pope wishes the reader to think of the "Palladian 
domes " of the great Italian architect Palladio. 

372. Antenor, Theano. 

382. So : i.e. if thou dost grant our prayer. 

383. grateful: 1. 417. n. 
391. architects: "builders." 

393. pompous structure : Intr. 2. c. 

399. brother-chief: Paris. — useless arms: the sneer is added 
by Pope. 

409. close resentment: 1. 677, 711, 719. 

411. Intr. 3. a. 

417. Phrygian is used by the Greek dramatists and Latin poets 
as a synonym of Trojan. Not so in H. — glories end : cf. 573. 

422. thy brother: Intr. 5. c. 

427. Intr. 3. c. 

428. contain: Intr. 1. a. 
431. lowly grace : not in H. 

432-433. In. H. "My brother, even mine that am a dog, mis-^^ 
chievous and abominable." Intr. 2. a. 

434-439. Cf. Tennyson, Dream of Fair Women (Helen speaks) : 
" Whereto the other with a downward brow : ' I would the white, 
cold heavy-plunging foam, Whirl' d by the wind, had roll'd me 
deep below T , Then when I left my home.' " — " Golden sun," " fatal 
infant," and "fowls of air," are Pope's embroidery. 



124 NOTES. 

438. whelming tide : Milton, Lycidas, " Where thou, perhaps, 
under the whelming tide." 

441. Paris of those ills the worst: the conceit is Pope's. 

454. where glory calls: so in Pope and Dryden, "where 
honour calls," "where danger calls." 

463. dearer part : cf. 624. 

466. second joy : not in H. Hector was the first. 

468-471. expanded from "stood upon the tower, weeping and 
wailing." 

470. explore: Intr. I. a. 

472-473. In H. simply, "And when Hector found not his noble 
wife within ! " 

475. asked what way she bent: Pope abbreviates in indirect 
discourse what Homer gives in the direct form; the passage 477- 
487, also both in its omissions and additions, is a characteristic 
example of Pope's method. 

480. " steepy tower " : from Dryden's version. 

488. This parting of Hector and Andromache is one of the most 
beautiful passages in all literature. Pope's translation, his method 
once granted, is excellent; far better than Chapman's. The passage 
has been translated by Dryden, Mrs. Browning, and many others. 

492. joyful fair : Intr. p. xxiii. 

499. fair as the new-born star : in old Hobbes's version this 
runs : " And like a star upon her bosom lay, | His beautiful and 
shining golden head." Cf. Tennyson, Princess, " At her left a 
child, I In shining draperies, headed like a star." 

503. Dryden renders, " From his great father who defends the 
wall." 

504-505. In. H. " So now he smiled and gazed at his boy 
silently ! " 

506. His beauteous princess : in H. Andromache. 

519-520. In H. "But it were better for me to go down to the 
grave if I lose thee." 

524. Achilles boasts in the ninth book that he sacked twelve 
cities by sea and eleven by land. Intr. p. x. 

529. decent: 1..432. n. 



BOOK VI. 125 

536. fat herds: Pope does not try to render Homer's "kine of 
trailing gait" or "leg-plaiters " as George Eliot calls them. 

539. the queen : " who was queen." 

541. native plain : 1. 204. n. 

543. Diana's bow : " Artemis, who showers her shafts," was the 
bringer of sudden death to women. 

546-547. Alas ! my parents : not in H. Pope thinks this anti- 
thetic repetition of 544-545 strengthens the thought. So Dryden, 
" O kill not all my kindred o'er again." 

551. fig-trees: cf. 22. 193. 

555. Vengeful Spartan : Menelaus. Intr. 4. a. 

570-573. Yet come it will, etc. : these lines are repeated from 
Agamemnon's angry prediction of the punishment that awaits 
Trojan perjury, Iliad, 4. 163. Homer repeats them verbatim; Pope 
adapts them to the context : " The day shall come, that great aveng- 
ing day, I When Troy's proud glories in the dust shall lay 
(sic), I When Priam's powers and Priam's self shall fall, | And one 
prodigious ruin cover all." 

The historian Polybius relates that Scipio Africanus recited these 
lines with tears as he watched the burning of Carthage and reflected 
that the turn of Rome too must come. 

580. In Argive looms: in H. simply "to weave the loom at 
another's bidding." The clever touch "our battles to design" is 
Pope's, suggested by Dryden's "gracing with Trojan fights a Grecian 
loom." " Woes of which so large a part was thine " was suggested 
by Virgil, &n. 2. 6. 

583. Hyperia: or rather Hypereia, a fountain perhaps in 
Thessaly. 

584. Dryden has "while groaning 'neath this labouring life." 

599. Dryden has "and Hector hastened to relieve his boy." 

600. glittering terrors : Intr. 4. d. 

604-605. thou ! etc. : in H. " Zeus and ye other gods." 
609. Intr. 3. a. 

617. pleasing burden : "his child." 

620-622. In H. "smiling tearfully." "I confess I doubt the 
Homeric genuineness of daKpvoev yeXdaaaa. It seems to me much 



126 NOTES. 

more like a prettiness of Bion or Moschus." Coleridge, Table Talk, 
Cf. " So sweetly gleamed her eyes behind her tears, | Like sun- 
light on the plain behind a shower." Tennyson, Merlin and 
Vivien. 

624. my souPs far better part: added by Pope, who repeats 
the phrase elsewhere. In Dryden's version of Aln. 4. 492, Dido 
addresses her sister : " Witness, ye gods, and thou my better part ! " 
Ovid has parte 7neliore mei of his soul and fame; and Macbeth in 
Shakspere speaks of "my better part of man." 

629. hard condition : Dryden also uses the phrase. Cf. Shak- 
spere, Hen. V. 4. 1. 250, u O hard condition! twin-born with 
greatness." 

634-635. Lit. "war shall be the concern of men," a familiar 
quotation in Greek literature. 

645. soft infection: cf. 24. 644; 24. 983. 

647. Pope abbreviates in this antithesis three simple lines of H. 

652-659. Dryden thus renders Virgil's imitation of this simile 
(A?n. 11. 492) : — 

" Freed from his keepers, thus with broken reins 
The wanton courser prances o'er the plains; 
Or in the pride of youth o'erleaps the mounds, 
And snuffs the females in forbidden grounds; 
Or seeks his watering in the well-known flood, 
To quench his thirst and cool his fiery blood; 
He swims luxuriant in the liquid plain, 
And o'er his shoulder flows his waving mane; 
He neighs, he snorts', he bears his head on high, 
Before his ample chest the frothy waters fly." 

665. stay: 6.457; 22.307. 

667. in blood, and now in arms : the conceit is Pope's. 
672. weeps blood : Intr. 4. c. 

678-679. " when we have chased out of Troy-land the well-greaved 
Achaeans." 

679. Greece indignant : Intr. 1. b. 



NOTES. 127 



BOOK XXII. 



Jebb, Ho7?ier, p. 32., selects this book for analysis. We recog- 
nize in it, he says, four general traits as preeminently Homeric : 
" (1) The outlines of character are made distinct in deed, in 
dialogue, and in audible thought. (2) The divine and human 
agencies are interfused. (3) Each crisis of the narrative is marked 
by a powerful simile from nature. (4) The fiercest scenes of war 
are brought into relief against profoundly touching pictures of 
domestic love and sorrow." 

For events between Books VI and XXII cf. Intr. p. xi. 

1. panic fear: "He had also the power of starting terrors, 
especially such as were vain and superstitious, whence they came 
to be called panic terrors." Bacon, Fable of Pan. Panic and Pan 
are not in H. 

3. briny drops : Intr. 4. a. 

4. drown in bowls : Intr. 4. c. 

6. Lit. "setting shields to shoulders," perhaps a rudimentary 
form of the Latin testudo, for which see Caesar, B. G. 2. 6. 2, in any 
good edition. 

7. embodied powers : stately periphrasis. So even " cranes 
embodied," 3, 7. — Lines 8, 10, 11, added by Pope. 

14. confessed: 1. 265. n. At the end of Book XXI Apollo in 
the guise of Agenor lures Achilles to pursue him and so give the 
fleeing Trojans a respite. 

18. latent: 24. 529. 

21. bestowed: 24.793. 

30. To cheat a mortal, etc. : the original which Pope softens 
was censured as impious by Plato : "verily I would punish thee if I 
had the power." Intr. 2. a. 

^. victor of the prize: cf. 24. 357, "victor of thy fears." 
Dryden has " victor of his vows." 

36. careful: 1. 546. 

39. Orion's dog : Orion, the great hunter, is seen in Hades by 
Odysseus. The constellation Orion, with the Pleiads, the Hyades, 
and the Wain, is depicted on Achilles's shield. The " dog " is Sirius 



128 NOTES. 

(not named in H.). It shines in the nightly sky only in the winter 
and spring. In the late summer dog days of which Homer speaks 
it appears just before dawn. Pope adds the " thick gloom," etc., 
and interprets late summer as autumn, a season unknown to Homer. 
— weighs : apparently suggested by the Latin gravis — (sickly, op- 
pressive) autumnus, gravi anni tempore, etc., or possibly weighs = 
balances in the scale of the constellation Libra. " Year " for season 
of year is a common Latinism in eighteenth-century poetry. 

40. exerts : Latinism, exsero, thrust out. So Dryden, Alu. 
" So from the seas exerts his radiant head | The star, by whom the 
lights of heaven are led. 

41. Terrific glory : Intr. 5. d. For the simile, cf. Tennyson, 
Princess, " And as the fiery Sirius alters hue, | And bickers into red 
and emerald, shone | Their morions washed with morning as they 
came." 

45-48. obtests . . . expects: Intr. 1. a. 
51. Intr. 5. a. 

54. fury of the plain : like " terror of the plain," frequent 
periphrasis in Pope and Dryden. 

55. Intr. 5. f. 

60. Valiant in vain : not in H. Virgil uses frustr a, nequicquam 
of virtue, valor, or happiness that do not avail in the end, and this 
pathetic " in vain " is a note of eighteenth-century poetry. Cf. 
Gray, Eton College, " Ah, fields beloved in vain," etc. 

63. explore : Intr. I. a. 

65. Lycaon's death at the hands of Achilles is described in one 
of the finest passages of the Iliad, 21. 34-135. 

66-67. cf - 6 - 5 8 ~ 61 - 

68. grandsire : Altes, king of the Leleges. Cf. 21. 85, "Old 
Altes' daughter and Lelegia's heir." The wealth is a sort of dowry 
which he gave with his daughter, one of Priam's wives. 

71. Stygian coast : (from Styx, the river of hell), like " Stygian 
shore," " Stygian flood," etc., Latinizing paraphrase common to 
Milton, Dryden, and Pope. Homer knows the Styx as the river by 
which the gods swear. 

79. Neglect : Latinism nec-lego, not heed. 



BOOK XXII. 129 

87. Intr. 3. a. 
93. relic : Intr. 1. a. 

95-107. Pope softens and sophisticates the affecting natural 
touches of the original here. 
98-99. Intr. 3. c. 
101. honest: honorable, cf. 364. 
108. acting : 1. 426. 
in. sorrows : tears. 

112. zone : belt, not in H., where she pulls open the front of her 
dress (by loosening the brooch on one shoulder). 

113. falling: transitive. 

115. words of age : Intr. 4. d. 

121. but heaven avert it : not in H. Like Latin absit omen. 

130. the: generalizing "the" of similes. Virgil, JEn. 2. 411, 
imitates this simile, and Pope is thinking of Virgil and Dryden as 
much as of Homer. " Brake " is from Dryden; " turgid," not in H., 
is Virgil's tumidum. 

134. collected ire: aLatinism: Lucret. I. 723, colligere iras. 

137. Cf. Milton, P. L. 6. 113. "And thus his own undaunted 
mind explores." 

139. Ungenerous : ignoble. "Generous " is of noble birth and 
breeding. 

140. Lit. " Polydamas will be first to bring reproach against me." 
In. 18. 254. Polydamas had advised retreat after Achilles's return 
to the war. 

149. Intr. 3. a. 
. 162. produce: pro-ducere ; cf. 24. 332. Shakspere, Julius 
Ccesar 3. 1. 228. "Produce his body to the market place." 166; 
Intr. 6. c. 

167. We greet not here : Pope spoils this lovely idyllic vision in 
the midst of the horrors of war, " no time is it now to dally with him 
from oak-tree or from rock, like youth with maiden, as youth and 
maiden hold dalliance one with another." — conversing: (with) cf. 
210. 

173. Thus pondering : i.e. while Hector thus pondered. 

175. Pelian : "his great paternal spear, | Ponderous and huge 
K 



i 3 o NOTES. 

which not a Greek could rear ; | From Pelion's cloudy top an ash 
entire. | Old Chiron fell'd, and shaped it for his sire ; | A spear 
which stern Achilles only wields, | The death of heroes and the 
dread of fields." //. 19. 389-392. (Pope). 

1 75. in his better hand : " brandishing from his right shoulder." 

177. beamy splendours: of the celestial armor made by 
Hephaestus at the prayer of Thetis in the eighteenth book. 

1 79-1 80. unusual terrors and struck by some god : are added by 
Pope, perhaps to soften Hector's flight for modern readers. Cf. 
Lang, Homer and the Epic, p. 210. " In a saga, or a chanson 
de geste, in an Arthurian romance, in a Border ballad, in whatever 
poem or tale answers in our northern literature, however feebly, to 
Homer, this flight round the wall of Troy would be an absolute 
impossibility. . . . Can we fancy Skarphedin, or Gunnar, or Gret- 
tir, or Olaf Howard's son flying from one enemy? " 

184. liquid skies : so Dryden, " cleave the liquid sky." Gray, 
Spring, "float amid the liquid noon." 

193. fig-trees: 6. 551. 

194. smoke along : not in H. Cf. Dryden, ALn. 7. 909, 
" Proud of his steeds he smokes along the field." 

195. Scamander's double source : two springs answering fairly 
to Homer's description have been found on Mt. Ida twenty miles 
away from "Troy." 

201. marble cistern : " washing-troughs, fair troughs of stone." 
Intr. 2. c. 

204. washed their fair garments : so Odysseus finds the 
" Princess " Nausicaa and her maidens washing at the river. 

207. no vulgar : 6. 293. n. 

210. contended (for) : cf. 167. 

216. Intr. 3. a. — raised: excited; Latin, erectus. 

224. Cf. 24,44,45. 

225. grateful: 1.417. n. 
228. Fate : Intr. 4. d. 

240. I give the fates their way: not in H., and more in the 
manner of Seneca or Lucan. 

242. Tritonia : Trito-born, unexplained epithet of Athena. 



BOOK XXII. 131 

244. beagle : a small dog for hunting hares; in H. simply 
" dog." 

247. vapour, etc. : i.e. the scent. 

248. certain : certus, unerring. 

256. In H. "but he (Achilles) ever ran on the city-side." 

257. As men in slumbers: this, the earliest simile from dreams, 
is imitated by Virgil, Aln. 12. 908, where /Eneas pursues Turnus; 
in Dryden's version : " And as when heavy sleep has closed the 
sight, I The sickly fancy labours in the night; | We seem to run, 
and destitute of force, | Our sinking limbs forsake us in the 
course," etc. Cf. Tennyson, Vision of Sin, " But as in dreams, I 
could not." 

263-266. The original is obscure. Pope paraphrases. 

266. nerves : sinews. Intr. 1 . a. 

267-269. great Achilles . . . signed : Aristotle in his Poetics, 
speaking of the difference between epic and drama, says that this 
scene would be ridiculous on the stage. 

271. golden balances : this image is borrowed by Virgil, and by 
Milton, P. L. 4 in fine. In Milton the lighter scale of the weaker 
combatant mounts. 

276. Intr. 6 c. 

280. Intr. 4. d. 

282. drunk with renown : Intr. 4. c. Cf. Kipling, Recessional, 
" Drunk with sight of power." 

285. he: Apollo. 

291. martial dame : Intr. 4. a. 

294. voice belied : feigning voice. 

317. Enough, etc. : the turn of the phrase is Latin. Cf. Virgil, 
ASn. 2. 642, satis vidimus exscidia, etc. 

322. suspend : 24. 839. — " day " is often used for " battle " or 
"issue." 

346. 'Tis Pallas, Pallas: i.e. Dallas Athena; a curious example 
of Pope's preoccupation with Virgil. In the Aineid Turnus has 
slain Pallas, a youth beloved by yEneas. When Turnus falls 
before ^Eneas, ^Eneas exclaims, in Dryden's version, " 'Tis Pallas, 
Pallas gives this deadly blow." 



132 NOTES. 

347. This fancy is Pope's. Homer says, " Now in one hour 
shalt thou pay back for all," etc. 
35°-35 2 - meditated . . . innocent: Intr. 1. a. 
355. unseen of: cf. 6. 312. 

361. Intr. 3. b. 

362. false terrors : "unreal." Cf. Horace, Epistles, 2. 1. 212, 
falsis terroribus imp let. — sink : transitive. 

364 : dishonest : supra, 101 ; 24. 66. 
368. Intr. 6. c. 

370. heavenly: cf. 177. n. 

371. resulting: resulio, rebound. Intr. 1. a. 386-388. In H. 
"At least let me not die without a struggle or ingloriously, but in 
some great deed of arms whereof men yet to be born shall hear. " Cf. 
Tennyson, Two Voices : " To perish, wept for, honoured, known | 
And like a warrior overthrown; | Whose eyes are dim with glori- 
ous tears | When, soiled with noble dust, he hears | His country's 
war-song thrill his ears." 

399. Hesper : cf. Milton, P. Z. 4 : " Hesperus that led | The starry 
host rode brightest." 

412. thy : the shift to second person is Pope's. Homer naively 
says, " so that he (Hector) might speak words of answer to his 
foe." 

417. Added by Pope. Cf. Dryden's version of Virgil, ALn. 10. 
94. " Then was your time to fear the Trojan fate ! " 

418. Intr. 3. a. 
421. he : Patroclus. 

427. prevalence of prayer : " I pray thee by thy knees." 
438. no — to the dogs: the clever, softening turn is Pope's. 
Intr. 3. a; 2. a; 24. 262. 

451. Phoebus and Paris: they slew Achilles in "the things 
after Homer." Cf. Lang, Helen of Troy, 5. 42, "But now, their 
leader slain, the Trojans fled, | And fierce Achilles drove them in his 
hate, I Avenging still his dear Patroclus dead, | Nor knew the hour 
with his own fate was great, | Nor trembled, standing in the Scaean 
gate, I Where ancient prophecy foretold his fall; | Then suddenly 
there sped the bolt of fate, | And smote Achilles by the Ilian walk' 



BOOK XXII. 133 

455-458. Matthew Arnold's imitation is truer to the spirit of 
Homer than Pope : — 

" Till now all strength was ebb'd and from his limbs 
Unwillingly the spirit fled away, 
Regretting the warm mansion which it left, 
And youth and bloom and this delightful world." 

— SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. 

460. unheard : in H. simply " him even dead Achilles ad- 
dressed." 

467. some, ignobler: the moralizing is added by Pope. But 
cf. 24. 66-69, where the sentiment is attributed to the gods that it 
is ignoble to insult the dead. 

469. How changed that Hector : in H. " far easier to handle is 
Hector now"; but Pope is thinking of Virgil's quantum mutatus 
ab Mo Hectore, Alii. 2. 274. 

485 sqq. "dear image" (cf. 24. 6), "vital spirit" and "flames" 
belong to Pope's rhetoric. 

493. Intr. 2. d. 

494. Cf. Shakspere, Troilus and Cressida, 5. 9: — 

" On, Myrmidons, and cry you all amain, 
Achilles hath the mighty Hecto?- slam." 

496. Unworthy : cf. 467. n. 

497. nervous : 266. n. 
502. his : Hector's. 
519. spires: Intr. 2. c. 

527. impotence: 6. 67. n. 

528. in dust: "in the mire or manure of the courtyard." 
Intr. 2. a. 

536. He has a father, too : cf. 24. 599. n. 
547. Intr. 4. a. 

555. Patient of: Intr. 1. a. So Dryden, "Patient of human 
hands and earthly steel." 

566. Intr. 2. c. — close recesses: 1. 711. n. 
580-581. desert . . . heart: Intr. 6. a. 



134 NOTES. 

589. jaws of fate : Intr. 4. c. 

598. swimming eyes : 6. 14. 

600-602. On heiaddress of Homeric women, cf. Jebb, p. 64. 

608. In H. her first word is " Hector — woe is me." 

610. one star: 6. 225. n. ; 24. 674. 

611. Hippoplacia: 6. 495. 

636. The kindest, etc. : Pope abstractly paraphrases Homer's 
concrete expression, " and one of them that pity him holdeth his cup 
a little to his mouth and moisteneth his lips, but his palate he 
moisteneth not." 

638. Frugal compassion : Intr. 5= d. 

643. Astyanax : the mother suddenly shifts from the general 
thought to her fears for her own son. 

659. Useless to thee : the primitive thought here which Pope 
misses is that the burning of the garments will not profit Hector's 
shade because he will not be burned on the pyre with them. 



BOOK XXIV. 

1 . games : the funeral games in honor of Patroclus, described 
in the twenty-third book. 
3. genial: 1. 772. 

6. dear image : 22. 485. 

7. Added by Pope. 

8. gifts of sleep: a phrase used by H. ; not here, but 7. 482; 
9. 714. So Milton, " thy gift of sleep." — all-composing : in H. 
u that conquereth all." Cf. Dunciad, 4. 627, " the all-composing 
hour." 

10. Intr. 4. c. 

29. skies : Intr. 4. d. 

37. I.e. Juno. Intr. 4. a. 

38-41. Intr. p. viii. 

44-45. Cf. 22. 224. 

53. impotence: 6. 67. 

57. The Greek poets often moralize that the sense of shame is 



BOOK XXIV. 135 

the greatest good, and yet, in the form of shamefacedness or false 
modesty, a great evil. 

59. repugnant: re-pugnans. Intr. 1. a. 

63. Matthew Arnold's favorite line, " For an enduring soul have 
the Destinies given to men." 

66. dishonest : 22, 364. 

68-69. Cf. 22. 467. n. 

73. Then hear, etc. : that is, " listen to Apollo." 

78-83. Cf. Intr. p. viii. 

96. azure queen : i.e. Thetis, goddess of the blue sea. Intr. 4. a. 

101-102. In H. " leaped into the black sea ! " 

103. Samos : i.e. Samothrace; the Iliad does not know Samos. 

106. profound: a noun; cf. inane prof undum, and Milton's 
"palpable obscure." 

107-108. Pope omits the picturesque Homeric particulars, " And 
she sped to the bottom like a weight of lead that mounted on horn 
of a field-ox goeth down bearing death to ravenous fishes." The 
lead was the " sinker," and the bit of horn perhaps protected the 
line. Homer rarely alludes to fishing, and the Homeric man eats 
fish only under stress of famine. — fallacious : in that it cheats the 
fishes, a Latin conceit not in H. 

112. Intr. 4. a. 

113. revolving: Lat. revolvens, brooding over, or, possibly, 
"reading the book of." Not in H. 

115. goddess of the painted bow: so Dryden, sEn. "god- 
dess of the various bow," " various Iris," etc. Homer does not, 
like Virgil, ALn. 4. 701, think of Iris messenger of the gods as the 
rainbow. 

124. majestically sad: Intr. 2. d. Dryden, ALn. "majesti- 
cally sad he sits in state." 

125. world of waters: not in H. 
130. shining synod : cf. 1.690. 
138. maternal sorrows: Intr. 5. d. 

146. this glory: i.e. of self-conquest. Intr. 3. b. 
168-172. indulge , . . relics: Intr. 1. a. 
184. decent: 1.432; 6.529. 



\y 



136 NOTES. 

194-195. Intr. 3.b. 

195. down her bow: not in H.; cf. 115. n. 

202. ashes: 22. 528. n. 

204. vaulted dome : Intr. 2. c. 

2 33~ 2 34- I n H. simply " Lady, from Zeus hath an Olympian 
messenger come to me." 

246. overthrown: not in H. Cf. Hamlet, 3. 1, "O what a 
noble mind is here o'erthrown ! " 

249. wander o'er: not in H. Apparently let thy eyes (or lips?) 
wander o'er. 

261. in his dearest blood: lit. "whose inmost vitals (liver) I 
were fain to fasten and feed upon." Cf. Intr. 2. a; 22. 437. Cf. 
Beatrice in Much Ado, " I could eat his heart in the market place." 

263. merit thus: Intr. 1. a; 6. 70. 

264. expired : ex-spiro, breathe out. 

273. present goddess : Latinism, press ens deus, Horace, Odes, 
3. 5. 2. "A present deity! they shout around, | A present deity! 
the vaulted roofs rebound." Dryden, Alexander's Feast. 

275 sqq. Intr. 5. f. 

277-279. In H. "let Achilles slay me with all speed, when 
once I have taken in my arms my son," etc. 

284. stiff with gold : not in H. Virgil, JEn. 11. 22, vestes auro 
. . . rigentes. Cf. 6. 114. 

286. talent: in H. a small weight; later about $1200. 

288. pledge : pignns, 6. 275. 

290. one last look : not in H. Intr. 3. a. 

294. office : service, officium, I. 770. Tennyson, Morte 
d' 'Arthur-. "And thou the latest left of all my knights, | In whom 
should meet the offices of all." * 

307. Oh, send me gods: cf. 6. 518. 

309. feebly: added by Pope. 

311. erring: going astray, added by Pope. 

317. Inglorious sons, etc.: "I always was particularly struck 
with that passage in Homer, where he makes Priam's grief for the 
loss of Hector break out into anger against his attendants and sons, 
and could never read it without weeping for the distress of that 



BOOK XXIV. 137 

unfortunate old prince." Pope, in Spence's Anecdotes. " When 
Priam had his whole thoughts employed on the body of his Hector, 
he repels with indignation, and drives from him with a thousand 
reproaches, his surviving sons, who with an officious piety crowded 
about him to offer their assistance. A good critick (there is no 
better than Mr. Fox) would say that this is a master-stroke, and 
marks a deep understanding of nature in the father of poetry. He 
would despise a Zoilus, who would conclude from this passage that 
Homer meant to represent this man of affliction as hating, or being 
indifferent and cold in his affections to the poor relicks of his house, 
or that he preferred a dead carcase to his living children." Burke, 
Appeal from the A T ew to the Old Whigs. 

322. Troilus : in H. only here, but an important name in lit- 
erature from Virgil, Aln. 1. 474, and the mediaeval story of " Troilus 
and Cressida," in Boccaccio, Chaucer, Lydgate, and Shakspere's 
play. 

329. " Harness the mule car ! " 

331-332. In H. " fearing their father's voice." Intr. 2. a, or 
3. b. — produce: 22. 162. n. 

335. Box was the yoke, etc. : the disputed technicalities of the 
original, which Pope loosely paraphrases, do not concern the lit- 
erary student of Pope's Iliad. 

357. Victor of: 22. ^. n. ; the antithesis "thy . . . mine" is 
Pope's. 

358. Heaven or thy soul: in H. simply "since thy heart 
speedeth thee." Cf. Virgil, ALn. 9. 184 (Dryden). "Or do the 
gods inspire | This warmth, or make we gods of our desire?" In 
what follows, Pope " heightens the style " by such phrases as 
" desolated realms," " sovereign of the plumy race " = eagle, " yon 
ethereal space," "who so good as Jove? " 

364. tower: Milton has "towering eagles." P. L. 5. 

388 sqq. In H. " sent forth an eagle, surest omen of winged 
birds, the dusky hunter, called of men the Black Eagle " (percnos !). 

393. stooping dexter : term of augury for Homer's " speeding 
on the right hand." 

411. Henjies: Pope here employs the Greek name (not Mer- 



138 NOTES. 

cury). Hermes sometimes takes the place of Iris as messenger of 
the gods in H. Later he became the patron god of heralds. 
415. prevent: Intr. 1. a. 

417. golden pinions binds, etc.: Cf. Virgil, JEn. 4. 350 
(Dryden). " Hermes obeys. With golden pinions binds | His 
flying feet, and mounts the western winds; | And whether o'er the 
seas or earth he flies, | With rapid force they bear him down the 
skies." 

418. incumbent: Milton, P. L. 1. 225, "Then with expanded 
wings he steers his flight | Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air. 1 '' 

421. wand: the so-called Caduceus. Cf. Tennyson, Demeter 
and Pei'sephone, "the serpent-wanded power" = Hermes. 

424. Hellespont's resounding sea : periphrasis for " Helles- 
pont." 

425-426. In H. " in semblance as a young man that is a prince, 
with the new down on his chin, as when the youth of men is come- 
liest." Cf. Milton's Uriel as a " stripling cherub," P. L. 3. 

426-427. In H. simply " darkness was come down over the 
earth." Intr. 4. c. 

429. What time : Milton, P.L. 1. 36, " what time his pride," etc. 

430-431. In H. simply "beyond the great barrow of Ilus . . . 
at the river." Pope makes of it a picturesque landscape in the 
style of Claude Lorrain or Saivator Rosa. 

448 : sealed : Intr. 4. c. 

457. lines: lineaments. 

465. In H. "All this old sire hast thou verily spoken aright; " 
but Pope is unwilling to let the imputation of falsehood rest on a 
god. Intr. 2. b. 

477. tempt: Intr. 1. a. 

481. I saw him when: Book 15. 718; 16. 123. 

484. enjoyed the fire : added by Pope. 

485. Myrmidonian : 1. 239. n. 

491. watch : i.e. as sentinel. In Homer simply, " and now I am 
come from the ships to the plain." 
502. Intr. 4. a. 
515. or all : i.e. or else not merely some but all. 



BOOK XXIV. 139 

522. in exalted power : i.e. when alive and in power. 

523-524. In H. "Therefore they have remembered it for him, 
albeit his portion is death." Intr. 3. b. c. 

529. latent: 22. 18. H. does not think it necessary to remind 
us that Hermes is disguised. 

530-536. Intr. 3. b. In H. " I were afraid and shamed at 
heart to defraud him, lest some evil come to pass on me hereafter." 
Pope makes explicit the antithesis of the two motives, shame and 
fear. 

544. not their own : a favorite turn of eighteenth-century dic- 
tion, ultimately derived from the Latin of Virgil's grafted trees that 
wonder at non sua po?7ia, " apples not their own." Georgics, 2. 82. 
Cf. Rape of Lock, 1. 148, " And Betty's praised for labours not her 
own." 

547. virtue of his wand : magic potency, specific quality. Cf. 
Milton's " Virtuous ring and glass," and Shakspere's Merchant of 
Venice, 5. 1, "If you had known the virtue of the ring." In H. 
virtue is manly virtue, i.e. courage. 

549. massy: Intr. 1. c. 

552. tent : obviously a tent only in the general sense of soldier's 
dwelling. 

563. and thus revealed : Intr. 5. e. 

568. Lit. " It were cause of wrath that an immortal god should 
thus show favor openly unto mortals." 

578. Intr. 2. d. 

592. just gains some frontier : in H. " to the house of some 
rich man and wonder possesseth them that look on him." 

599. Think of that father's age: a delicate psychological 
touch, for in 22. 536 the first thought that occurs to Priam when he 
sees Achilles trailing Hector from his car is "he has a father, too." 

603. Intr. 3. a. 

615. pledge: in eighteenth-century diction = child, in imitation 
of the Latin poets' use of pignus. 

617. Intr. 3. a. 

630. Thus forced to kneel, etc. : in H. " and have braved what 
none other man on earth hath braved before, to stretch forth my 



Ho NOTES. 

hand toward the face of the slayer of my sons." But it has been 
generally taken in the sense " kiss the hands of the slayer." "Till 
Priam did what no man born hath done, | Who dared to pass among 
the Argive bands, | And clasp'd the knees of him that slew his son | 
And kissed his awful homicidal hands." Lang, Helen of Troy, 5. 
30. 

644-646. These lines are perhaps the most ludicrous travesty of 
a pathetic original in all Pope. 

663. Two urns : a bit of moral philosophy in the form of a 
myth. There is mixed good and evil, and unmixed evil in the world, 
but no unmixed good. 

669. meagre: i.e. emaciating; in H. "ox-hunger," ravenous 
hunger. 

671. sincere: sincerus, unalloyed; sometimes fancifully ex- 
plained as honey without wax, sine cera. 

674. stars: 6. 225. n.; 22. 610. 

675. a realm: Phthia. — a goddess: Thetis. 

681. him: Achilles. 

682. his : Peleus's. 

683. Thou too, old man : Arnold, On Translation of Homer, pp. 
295-296. " The most essentially grand and characteristic things of 
Homer are such things as ... ' nay and thou, too, old man, in times 
past wert, as we hear, happy.' In the original this line, for mingled 
pathos and dignity, is perhaps without a rival even in Homer." 

689. from his bitter urn : added by Pope. It is not in Homer's 
simple manner to follow up an image in this way. 

698. on the bare beach : in H. " at the huts." 

712. not thy own: 544. 

717. In H. "lest I leave not even thee in peace." 

742. touch the ghosts: "touch "is a reminiscence of tangere, 
used in the same way by Latin poets. Cf. " If aught of things that 
here befall | Touch a spirit among things divine." Tennyson. 
Duke of Wellington. 

752. paints: a note of eighteenth-century diction. 

753. But now, etc. : " But now bethink we us of supper. For 
even fair-haired Niobe bethought her of meat." 



BOOK XXIV. 141 

762. Cynthia : Artemis, Diana from Mt. Cynthus on Delos, her 
native isle. 

778. Intr. 3. a. 

779. Intr. 6. c. 

785. "And many tears shall be his due." 

796. Cf. 1. 614. n. 

800-801. Pope develops the antithesis. Cf. Intr. 4. b. 

805. dew of sleep: not in H. Intr. 4. c. Shakspere has 
"golden dew of sleep," Richard III. 4. I; Milton, "dewy sleep," 
P. L. 9; Shelley, Adonais VII.; Virgil, AL11. 3. 511, sopor irrigat 
artus ; Persius, 5. 55, irriguo somno. 

809. my only food, etc. : Intr. 3. a. 

821. prevent: Intr. 1. a. 

832. aspire: Intr. 1. a. 

839. suspend the fall: in H. simply, "I will hold back the 
battle." 

842. blooming charms : 1. 144. 

869. majestically slow : Intr. 4. d; 6. 369. 

900-905. Note the un- Homeric artificiality of these lines. 

907. weeping consort: "white-armed Andromache." 

930. For thy stern father : this misses the pathos of the original 
"for not gentle was thy father in the grievous fray," i.e. as we knew 
him gentle at home. Cf. the " Lullaby" in the Golden Treasury, p. 
36: "Although a lion in the field, | A lamb in town thou shalt him 
find." 

931. Thence all these tears, etc.: i.e. "therefore the people 
lament him," because he was "a lion in the field." Pope seems to 
miss the meaning. 

938. never, never: Intr. 5. a. 

942. mother: Hecuba. — sustains her part : "led the loud 
lament." 

959. pomp of grief: Dryden has " pomp of woe." 

960. shining sluices : Milton, P. L. 5. 133 : " Two other precious 
drops that ready stood, | Each in their crystal sluice " = two tears. 
This lament of Helen is one of the most touching things in the 
Iliad. Pope is not very successful with it. Readers of "Tom 



142 NOTES. 

Brown " will remember the scene in which " little Arthur " breaks 
down over it. Cf. Lang, Helen of Troy, 4. 9 : " and in the court 
of Ilios were two | Kind hearts still eager Helen to defend, | And 
help and comfort in all need to lend : | The gentle Hector with soft 
speech and mild, | And the old king that ever was her friend, | And 
loved her as a father doth his child." 

992. gathered forests: " great store of wood." 

994. sylvan structure : "lofty pyre." 

1015. such honors: "Thus held they the funeral for Hector, 
tamer of horses." 



ADVERTISEMENTS 



An Introduction to Robert Browning. 

By HIRAM CORSON, LL.D., 

Professor of English Literature in Cornell University. 



THE purpose of this volume is to afford aid and guidance 
to the study of Robert Browning's Poetry. As this is the 
most complexly subjective of all English poetry, it is, for this reason 
alone, the most difficult. The poet's favorite art form, the dramatic, 
or rather psychologic, monologue, which is quite original with him- 
self, presents certain structural difficulties, but difficulties which, 
with an increased familiarity, grow less and less. The exposition 
of its constitution and skillful management, presented in the Intro- 
duction, and the Arguments given to the several poems included 
in the volume, will, it is hoped, reduce, if not altogether remove, 
the difficulties of this kind. In the same section of the Introduction 
certain peculiarities of the poet's diction are presented and illus- 
trategl. 

It is believed that the notes to the poems will be found to cover 
all points and features of the texts which require explanation and 
elucidation. At any rate, no real difficulties have been wittingly 
passed by. 

The following Table of Contents will indicate the plan of the 
work : — 

I. The Spiritual Ebb and Flow exhibited in English Poetry. 
II. The Idea of Personality and of Art as an intermediate agency of Personal" 
ity, as embodied in Browning's Poetry. 

III. Browning's Obscurity. 

IV. Browning's Verse. 

V Arguments of the Poems. 
VI. Poems. Thirty-three representative poems. 
VII. List of criticisms on Browning's works. 

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An Introduction to Shakespeare. 



By HIRAM CORSON, LL.D., 

Professor of English Literature in Cornell University. 



THIS work indicates to the student lines of Shakespearean 
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Plays as plays. The general introductory chapter is followed by 
chapters on : The Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy, — The Authen- 
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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE 

Study of English Fiction. 

By WILLIAM EDWARD SIMONDS, Ph.D. 

Professor of English Literature, Knox College. 

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